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us," said Acton. "That's what we must keep hold of!" He was too impatient to see Madame M nster again to wonder what Mr. Wentworth was talking about. Nevertheless, after he had passed out of the house and traversed the garden and the little piece of road that separated him from Eugenia's provisional residence, he stopped a moment outside. He stood in her little garden; the long window of her parlor was open, and he could see the white curtains, with the lamp-light shining through them, swaying softly to and fro in the warm night wind. There was a sort of excitement in the idea of seeing Madame M nster again; he became aware that his heart was beating rather faster than usual. It was this that made him stop, with a half-amused surprise. But in a moment he went along the piazza, and, approaching the open window, tapped upon its lintel with his stick. He could see the Baroness within; she was standing in the middle of the room. She came to the window and pulled aside the curtain; then she stood looking at him a moment. She was not smiling; she seemed serious. _"Mais entrez donc!"_ she said at last. Acton passed in across the window-sill; he wondered, for an instant, what was the matter with her. But the next moment she had begun to smile and had put out her hand. "Better late than never," she said. "It is very kind of you to come at this hour." "I have just returned from my journey," said Acton. "Ah, very kind, very kind," she repeated, looking about her where to sit. "I went first to the other house," Acton continued. "I expected to find you there." She had sunk into her usual chair; but she got up again, and began to move about the room. Acton had laid down his hat and stick; he was looking at her, conscious that there was in fact a great charm in seeing her again. "I don't know whether I ought to tell you to sit down," she said. "It is too late to begin a visit." "It's too early to end one," Acton declared; "and we needn't mind the beginning." She looked at him again, and, after a moment, dropped once more into her low chair, while he took a place near her. "We are in the middle, then?" she asked. "Was that where we were when you went away? No, I haven't been to the other house." "Not yesterday, nor the day before, eh?" "I don't know how many days it is." "You are tired of it," said Acton. She leaned back in her chair; her arms were folded. "That is a terrible accusation, but I have not the courage to defend myself." "I am not attacking you," said Acton. "I expected something of this kind." "It's a proof of extreme intelligence. I hope you enjoyed your journey." "Not at all," Acton declared. "I would much rather have been here with you." "Now you _are_ attacking me," said the Baroness. "You are contrasting my inconstancy with your own fidelity." "I confess I never get tired of people I like." "Ah, you are not a poor wicked foreign woman, with irritable nerves and a sophisticated mind!" "Something has happened to you since I went away," said Acton, changing his place. "Your going away--that is what has happened to me." "Do you mean to say that you have missed me?" he asked. "If I had meant to say it, it would not be worth your making a note of. I am very dishonest and my compliments are worthless." Acton was silent for some moments. "You have broken down," he said at last. Madame M nster left her chair, and began to move about. "Only for a moment. I shall pull myself together again." "You had better not take it too hard. If you are bored, you needn't be afraid to say so--to me at least." "You shouldn't say such things as that," the Baroness answered. "You should encourage me." "I admire your patience; that is encouraging." "You shouldn't even say that. When you talk of my patience you are disloyal to your own people. Patience implies suffering; and what have I had to suffer?" "Oh, not hunger, not unkindness, certainly," said Acton, laughing. "Nevertheless, we all admire your patience." "You all detest me!" cried the Baroness, with a sudden vehemence, turning her back toward him. "You make it hard," said Acton, getting up, "for a man to say something tender to you." This evening there was something particularly striking and touching about her; an unwonted softness and a look of suppressed emotion. He felt himself suddenly appreciating the fact that she had behaved very well. She had come to this quiet corner of the world under the weight of a cruel indignity, and she had been so gracefully, modestly thankful for the rest she found there. She had joined that simple circle over the way; she had mingled in its plain, provincial talk; she had shared its meagre and savorless pleasures. She had set herself a task, and she had rigidly performed it. She had conformed to the angular conditions of New England life, and she had had the tact and pluck to carry it off as if she liked them. Acton felt a more downright need than he had ever felt before to tell her that he admired her and that she struck him as a very superior woman. All along, hitherto, he had been on his guard with her; he had been cautious, observant, suspicious. But now a certain light tumult in his blood seemed to tell him that a finer degree of confidence in this charming woman would be its own reward. "We don't detest you," he went on. "I don't know what you mean. At any rate, I speak for myself; I don't know anything about the others. Very likely, you detest them for the dull life they make you lead. Really, it would give me a sort of pleasure to hear you say so." Eugenia had been looking at the door on the other side of the room; now she slowly turned her eyes toward Robert Acton. "What can be the motive," she asked, "of a man like you--an honest man, a _galant homme_--in saying so base a thing as that?" "Does it sound very base?" asked Acton, candidly. "I suppose it does, and I thank you for telling me so. Of course, I don't mean it literally." The Baroness stood looking at him. "How do you mean it?" she asked. This question was difficult to answer, and Acton, feeling the least bit foolish, walked to the open window and looked out. He stood there, thinking a moment, and then he turned back. "You know that document that you were to send to Germany," he said. "You called it your 'renunciation.' Did you ever send it?" Madame M nster's eyes expanded; she looked very grave. "What a singular answer to my question!" "Oh, it isn't an answer," said Acton. "I have wished to ask you, many times. I thought it probable you would tell me yourself. The question, on my part, seems abrupt now; but it would be abrupt at any time." The Baroness was silent a moment; and then, "I think I have told you too much!" she said. This declaration appeared to Acton to have a certain force; he had indeed a sense of asking more of her than he offered her. He returned to the window, and watched, for a moment, a little star that twinkled through the lattice of the piazza. There were at any rate offers enough he could make; perhaps he had hitherto not been sufficiently explicit in doing so. "I wish you would ask something of me," he presently said. "Is there nothing I can do for you? If you can't stand this dull life any more, let me amuse you!" The Baroness had sunk once more into a chair, and she had taken up a fan which she held, with both hands, to her mouth. Over the top of the fan her eyes were fixed on him. "You are very strange tonight," she said, with a little laugh. "I will do anything in the world," he rejoined, standing in front of her. "Shouldn't you like to travel about and see something of the country? Won't you go to Niagara? You ought to see Niagara, you know." "With you, do you mean?" "I should be delighted to take you." "You alone?" Acton looked at her, smiling, and yet with a serious air. "Well, yes; we might go alone," he said. "If you were not what you are," she answered, "I should feel insulted." "How do you mean--what I am?" "If you were one of the gentlemen I have been used to all my life. If you were not a queer Bostonian." "If the gentlemen you have been used to have taught you to expect insults," said Acton, "I am glad I am what I am. You had much better come to Niagara." "If you wish to 'amuse' me," the Baroness declared, "you need go to no further expense. You amuse me very effectually." He sat down opposite to her; she still held her fan up to her face, with her eyes only showing above it. There was a moment's silence, and then he said, returning to his former question, "Have you sent that document to Germany?" Again there was a moment's silence. The expressive eyes of Madame M nster seemed, however, half to break it. "I will tell you--at Niagara!" she said. She had hardly spoken when the door at the further end of the room opened--the door upon which, some minutes previous, Eugenia had fixed her gaze. Clifford Wentworth stood there, blushing and looking rather awkward. The Baroness rose, quickly, and Acton, more slowly, did the same. Clifford gave him no greeting; he was looking at Eugenia. "Ah, you were here?" exclaimed Acton. "He was in Felix's studio," said Madame M nster. "He wanted to see his sketches." Clifford looked at Robert Acton, but said nothing; he only fanned himself with his hat. "You chose a bad moment," said Acton; "you hadn't much light." "I hadn't any!" said Clifford, laughing. "Your candle went out?" Eugenia asked. "You should have come back here and lighted it again." Clifford looked at her a moment. "So I have--come back. But I have left the candle!" Eugenia turned away. "You are very stupid, my poor boy. You had better go home." "Well," said Clifford, "good-night!" "Haven't you a word to throw to a man when he has safely returned from a dangerous journey?" Acton asked. "How do you do?" said Clifford. "I thought--I thought you were----" and he paused, looking at the Baroness again. "You thought I was at Newport, eh? So I was--this morning." "Good-night, clever child!" said Madame M nster, over her shoulder. Clifford stared at her--not at all like a clever child; and then, with one of his little facetious growls, took his departure. "What is the matter with him?" asked Acton, when he was gone. "He seemed rather in a muddle." Eugenia, who was near the window, glanced out, listening a moment. "The matter--the matter"--she answered. "But you don't say such things here." "If you mean that he had been drinking a little, you can say that." "He doesn't drink any more. I have cured him. And in return--he's in love with me." It was Acton's turn to stare. He instantly thought of his sister; but he said nothing about her. He began to laugh. "I don't wonder at his passion! But I wonder at his forsaking your society for that of your brother's paint-brushes." Eugenia was silent a little. "He had not been in the studio. I invented that at the moment." "Invented it? For what purpose?" "He has an idea of being romantic. He has adopted the habit of coming to see me at midnight--passing only through the orchard and through Felix's painting-room, which has a door opening that way. It seems to amuse him," added Eugenia, with a little laugh. Acton felt more surprise than he confessed to, for this was a new view of Clifford, whose irregularities had hitherto been quite without the romantic element. He tried to laugh again, but he felt rather too serious, and after a moment's hesitation his seriousness explained itself. "I hope you don't encourage him," he said. "He must not be inconstant to poor Lizzie." "To your sister?" "You know they are decidedly intimate," said Acton. "Ah," cried Eugenia, smiling, "has she--has she----" "I don't know," Acton interrupted, "what she has. But I always supposed that Clifford had a desire to make himself agreeable to her." "Ah, _par exemple!_" the Baroness went on. "The little monster! The next time he becomes sentimental I will him tell that he ought to be ashamed of himself." Acton was silent a moment. "You had better say nothing about it." "I had told him as much already, on general grounds," said the Baroness. "But in this country, you know, the relations of young people are so extraordinary that one is quite at sea. They are not engaged when you would quite say they ought to be. Take Charlotte Wentworth, for instance, and that young ecclesiastic. If I were her father I should insist upon his marrying her; but it appears to be thought there is no urgency. On the other hand, you suddenly learn that a boy of twenty and a little girl who is still with her governess--your sister has no governess? Well, then, who is never away from her mamma--a young couple, in short, between whom you have noticed nothing beyond an exchange of the childish pleasantries characteristic of their age, are on the point of setting up as man and wife." The Baroness spoke with a certain exaggerated volubility which was in contrast with the languid grace that had characterized her manner before Clifford made his appearance. It seemed to Acton that there was a spark of irritation in her eye--a note of irony (as when she spoke of Lizzie being never away from her mother) in her voice. If Madame M nster was irritated, Robert Acton was vaguely mystified; she began to move about the room again, and he looked at her without saying anything. Presently she took out her watch, and, glancing at it, declared that it was three o'clock in the morning and that he must go. "I have not been here an hour," he said, "and they are still sitting up at the other house. You can see the lights. Your brother has not come in." "Oh, at the other house," cried Eugenia, "they are terrible people! I don't know what they may do over there. I am a quiet little humdrum woman; I have rigid rules and I keep them. One of them is not to have visitors in the small hours--especially clever men like you. So good-night!" Decidedly, the Baroness was incisive; and though Acton bade her good-night and departed, he was still a good deal mystified. The next day Clifford Wentworth came to see Lizzie, and Acton, who was at home and saw him pass through the garden, took note of the circumstance. He had a natural desire to make it tally with Madame M nster's account of Clifford's disaffection; but his ingenuity, finding itself unequal to the task, resolved at last to ask help of the young man's candor. He waited till he saw him going away, and then he went out and overtook him in the grounds. "I wish very much you would answer me a question," Acton said. "What were you doing, last night, at Madame M nster's?" Clifford began to laugh and to blush, by no means like a young man with a romantic secret. "What did she tell you?" he asked. "That is exactly what I don't want to say." "Well, I want to tell you the same," said Clifford; "and unless I know it perhaps I can't." They had stopped in a garden path; Acton looked hard at his rosy young kinsman. "She said she couldn't fancy what had got into you; you appeared to have taken a violent dislike to her." Clifford stared, looking a little alarmed. "Oh, come," he growled, "you don't mean that!" "And that when--for common civility's sake--you came occasionally to the house you left her alone and spent your time in Felix's studio, under pretext of looking at his sketches." "Oh, come!" growled Clifford, again. "Did you ever know me to tell an untruth?" "Yes, lots of them!" said Clifford, seeing an opening, out of the discussion, for his sarcastic powers. "Well," he presently added, "I thought you were my father." "You knew someone was there?" "We heard you coming in." Acton meditated. "You had been with the Baroness, then?" "I was in the parlor. We heard your step outside. I thought it was my father." "And on that," asked Acton, "you ran away?" "She told me to go--to go out by the studio." Acton meditated more intensely; if there had been a chair at hand he would have sat down. "Why should she wish you not to meet your father?" "Well," said Clifford, "father doesn't like to see me there." Acton looked askance at his companion and forbore to make any comment upon this assertion. "Has he said so," he asked, "to the Baroness?" "Well, I hope not," said Clifford. "He hasn't said so--in so many words--to me. But I know it worries him; and I want to stop worrying him. The Baroness knows it, and she wants me to stop, too." "To stop coming to see her?" "I don't know about that; but to stop worrying father. Eugenia knows everything," Clifford added, with an air of knowingness of his own. "Ah," said Acton, interrogatively, "Eugenia knows everything?" "She knew it was not father coming in." "Then why did you go?" Clifford blushed and laughed afresh. "Well, I was afraid it was. And besides, she told me to go, at any rate." "Did she think it was I?" Acton asked. "She didn't say so." Again Robert Acton reflected. "But you didn't go," he presently said; "you came back." "I couldn't get out of the studio," Clifford rejoined. "The door was locked, and Felix has nailed some planks across the lower half of the confounded windows to make the light come in from above. So they were no use. I waited there a good while, and then, suddenly, I felt ashamed. I didn't want to be hiding away from my own father. I couldn't stand it any longer. I bolted out, and when I found it was you I was a little flurried. But Eugenia carried it off, didn't she?" Clifford added, in the tone of a young humorist whose perception had not been permanently clouded by the sense of his own discomfort. "Beautifully!" said Acton. "Especially," he continued, "when one remembers that you were very imprudent and that she must have been a good deal annoyed." "Oh," cried Clifford, with the indifference of a young man who feels that however he may have failed of felicity in behavior he is extremely just in his impressions, "Eugenia doesn't care for anything!" Acton hesitated a moment. "Thank you for telling me this," he said at last. And then, laying his hand on Clifford's shoulder, he added, "Tell me one thing more: are you by chance a little in love with the Baroness?" "No, sir!" said Clifford, almost shaking off his hand. CHAPTER X The first sunday that followed Robert Acton's return from Newport witnessed a change in the brilliant weather that had long prevailed. The rain began to fall and the day was cold and dreary. Mr. Wentworth and his daughters put on overshoes and went to church, and Felix Young, without overshoes, went also, holding an umbrella over Gertrude. It is to be feared that, in the whole observance, this was the privilege he most highly valued. The Baroness remained at home; she was in neither a cheerful nor a devotional mood. She had, however, never been, during her residence in the United States, what is called a regular attendant at divine service; and on this particular Sunday morning of which I began with speaking she stood at the window of her little drawing-room, watching the long arm of a rose tree that was attached to her piazza, but a portion of which had disengaged itself, sway to and fro, shake and gesticulate, against the dusky drizzle of the sky. Every now and then, in a gust of wind, the rose tree scattered a shower of water-drops against the window-pane; it appeared to have a kind of human movement--a menacing, warning intention. The room was very cold; Madame M nster put on a shawl and walked about. Then she determined to have some fire; and summoning her ancient negress, the contrast of whose polished ebony and whose crimson turban had been at first a source of satisfaction to her, she made arrangements for the production of a crackling flame. This old woman's name was Azarina. The Baroness had begun by thinking that there would be a savory wildness in her talk, and, for amusement, she had encouraged her to chatter. But Azarina was dry and prim; her conversation was anything but African; she reminded Eugenia of the tiresome old ladies she met in society. She knew, however, how to make a fire; so that after she had laid the logs, Eugenia, who was terribly bored, found a quarter of an hour's entertainment in sitting and watching them blaze and sputter. She had thought it very likely Robert Acton would come and see her; she had not met him since that infelicitous evening. But the morning waned without his coming; several times she thought she heard his step on the piazza; but it was only a window-shutter shaking in a rain-gust. The Baroness, since the beginning of that episode in her career of which a slight sketch has been attempted in these pages, had had many moments of irritation. But today her irritation had a peculiar keenness; it appeared to feed upon itself. It urged her to do something; but it suggested no particularly profitable line of action. If she could have done something at the moment, on the spot, she would have stepped upon a European steamer and turned her back, with a kind of rapture, upon that profoundly mortifying failure, her visit to her American relations. It is not exactly apparent why she should have termed this enterprise a failure, inasmuch as she had been treated with the highest distinction for which allowance had been made in American institutions. Her irritation came, at bottom, from the sense, which, always present, had suddenly grown acute, that the social soil on this big, vague continent was somehow not adapted for growing those plants whose fragrance she especially inclined to inhale and by which she liked to see herself surrounded--a species of vegetation for which she carried a collection of seedlings, as we may say, in her pocket. She found her chief happiness in the sense of exerting a certain power and making a certain impression; and now she felt the annoyance of a rather wearied swimmer who, on nearing shore, to land, finds a smooth straight wall of rock when he had counted upon a clean firm beach. Her power, in the American air, seemed to have lost its prehensile attributes; the smooth wall of rock was insurmountable. _"Surely je n'en suis pas l ,"_ she said to herself, "that I let it make me uncomfortable that a Mr. Robert Acton shouldn't honor me with a visit!" Yet she was vexed that he had not come; and she was vexed at her vexation. Her brother, at least, came in, stamping in the hall and shaking the wet from his coat. In a moment he entered the room, with a glow in his cheek and half-a-dozen rain-drops glistening on his moustache. "Ah, you have a fire," he said. _"Les beaux jours sont pass s,"_ replied the Baroness. "Never, never! They have only begun," Felix declared, planting himself before the hearth. He turned his back to the fire, placed his hands behind him, extended his legs and looked away through the window with an expression of face which seemed to denote the perception of rose-color even in the tints of a wet Sunday. His sister, from her chair, looked up at him, watching him; and what she saw in his face was not grateful to her present mood. She was puzzled by many things, but her brother's disposition was a frequent source of wonder to her. I say frequent and not constant, for there were long periods during which she gave her attention to other problems. Sometimes she had said to herself that his happy temper, his eternal gaiety, was an affectation, a _pose_; but she was vaguely conscious that during the present summer he had been a highly successful comedian. They had never yet had an explanation; she had not known the need of one. Felix was presumably following the bent of his disinterested genius, and she felt that she had no advice to give him that he would understand. With this, there was always a certain element of comfort about Felix--the assurance that he would not interfere. He was very delicate, this pure-minded Felix; in effect, he was her brother, and Madame M nster felt that there was a great propriety, every way, in that. It is true that Felix was delicate; he was not fond of explanations with his sister; this was one of the very few things in the world about which he was uncomfortable. But now he was not thinking of anything uncomfortable. "Dear brother," said Eugenia at last, "do stop making _les yeux doux_ at the rain." "With pleasure. I will make them at you!" answered Felix. "How much longer," asked Eugenia, in a moment, "do you propose to remain in this lovely spot?" Felix stared. "Do you want to go away--already?" "'Already' is delicious. I am not so happy as you." Felix dropped into a chair, looking at the fire. "The fact is I _am_ happy," he said in his light, clear tone. "And do you propose to spend your life in making love to Gertrude Wentworth?" "Yes!" said Felix, smiling sidewise at his sister. The Baroness returned his glance, much more gravely; and then, "Do you like her?" she asked. "Don't you?" Felix demanded. The Baroness was silent a moment. "I will answer you in the words of the gentleman who was asked if he liked music: _'Je ne la crains pas!'_" "She admires you immensely," said Felix. "I don't care for that. Other women should not admire one." "They should dislike you?" Again Madame M nster hesitated. "They should hate me! It's a measure of the time I have been losing here that they don't." "No time is lost in which one has been happy!" said Felix, with a bright sententiousness which may well have been a little irritating. "And in which," rejoined his sister, with a harsher laugh, "one has secured the affections of a young lady with a fortune!" Felix explained, very candidly and seriously. "I have secured Gertrude's affection, but I am by no means sure that I have secured her fortune. That may come--or it may not." "Ah, well, it _may!_ That's the great point." "It depends upon her father. He doesn't smile upon our union. You know he wants her to marry Mr. Brand." "I know nothing about it!" cried the Baroness. "Please to put on a log." Felix complied with her request and sat watching the quickening of the flame. Presently his sister added, "And you propose to elope with mademoiselle?" "By no means. I don't wish to do anything that's disagreeable to Mr. Wentworth. He has been far too kind to us." "But you must choose between pleasing yourself and pleasing him." "I want to please everyone!" exclaimed Felix, joyously. "I have a good conscience. I made up my mind at the outset that it was not my place to make love to Gertrude." "So, to simplify matters, she made love to you!" Felix looked at his sister with sudden gravity. "You say you are not afraid of her," he said. "But perhaps you ought to be--a little. She's a very clever person." "I begin to see it!" cried the Baroness. Her brother, making no rejoinder, leaned back in his chair, and there was a long silence. At last, with an altered accent, Madame M nster put another question. "You expect, at any rate, to marry?" "I shall be greatly disappointed if we don't." "A disappointment or two will do you good!" the Baroness declared. "And, afterwards, do you mean to turn American?" "It seems to me I am a very good American already. But we shall go to Europe. Gertrude wants extremely to see the world." "Ah, like me, when I came here!" said the Baroness, with a little laugh. "No, not like you," Felix rejoined, looking at his sister with a certain gentle seriousness. While he looked at her she rose from her chair, and he also got up. "Gertrude is not at all like you," he went on; "but in her own way she is almost as clever." He paused a moment; his soul was full of an agreeable feeling and of a lively disposition to express it. His sister, to his spiritual vision, was always like the lunar disk when only a part of it is lighted. The shadow on this bright surface seemed to him to expand and to contract; but whatever its proportions, he always appreciated the moonlight. He looked at the Baroness, and then he kissed her. "I am very much in | indignity | How many times the word 'indignity' appears in the text? | 1 |
us," said Acton. "That's what we must keep hold of!" He was too impatient to see Madame M nster again to wonder what Mr. Wentworth was talking about. Nevertheless, after he had passed out of the house and traversed the garden and the little piece of road that separated him from Eugenia's provisional residence, he stopped a moment outside. He stood in her little garden; the long window of her parlor was open, and he could see the white curtains, with the lamp-light shining through them, swaying softly to and fro in the warm night wind. There was a sort of excitement in the idea of seeing Madame M nster again; he became aware that his heart was beating rather faster than usual. It was this that made him stop, with a half-amused surprise. But in a moment he went along the piazza, and, approaching the open window, tapped upon its lintel with his stick. He could see the Baroness within; she was standing in the middle of the room. She came to the window and pulled aside the curtain; then she stood looking at him a moment. She was not smiling; she seemed serious. _"Mais entrez donc!"_ she said at last. Acton passed in across the window-sill; he wondered, for an instant, what was the matter with her. But the next moment she had begun to smile and had put out her hand. "Better late than never," she said. "It is very kind of you to come at this hour." "I have just returned from my journey," said Acton. "Ah, very kind, very kind," she repeated, looking about her where to sit. "I went first to the other house," Acton continued. "I expected to find you there." She had sunk into her usual chair; but she got up again, and began to move about the room. Acton had laid down his hat and stick; he was looking at her, conscious that there was in fact a great charm in seeing her again. "I don't know whether I ought to tell you to sit down," she said. "It is too late to begin a visit." "It's too early to end one," Acton declared; "and we needn't mind the beginning." She looked at him again, and, after a moment, dropped once more into her low chair, while he took a place near her. "We are in the middle, then?" she asked. "Was that where we were when you went away? No, I haven't been to the other house." "Not yesterday, nor the day before, eh?" "I don't know how many days it is." "You are tired of it," said Acton. She leaned back in her chair; her arms were folded. "That is a terrible accusation, but I have not the courage to defend myself." "I am not attacking you," said Acton. "I expected something of this kind." "It's a proof of extreme intelligence. I hope you enjoyed your journey." "Not at all," Acton declared. "I would much rather have been here with you." "Now you _are_ attacking me," said the Baroness. "You are contrasting my inconstancy with your own fidelity." "I confess I never get tired of people I like." "Ah, you are not a poor wicked foreign woman, with irritable nerves and a sophisticated mind!" "Something has happened to you since I went away," said Acton, changing his place. "Your going away--that is what has happened to me." "Do you mean to say that you have missed me?" he asked. "If I had meant to say it, it would not be worth your making a note of. I am very dishonest and my compliments are worthless." Acton was silent for some moments. "You have broken down," he said at last. Madame M nster left her chair, and began to move about. "Only for a moment. I shall pull myself together again." "You had better not take it too hard. If you are bored, you needn't be afraid to say so--to me at least." "You shouldn't say such things as that," the Baroness answered. "You should encourage me." "I admire your patience; that is encouraging." "You shouldn't even say that. When you talk of my patience you are disloyal to your own people. Patience implies suffering; and what have I had to suffer?" "Oh, not hunger, not unkindness, certainly," said Acton, laughing. "Nevertheless, we all admire your patience." "You all detest me!" cried the Baroness, with a sudden vehemence, turning her back toward him. "You make it hard," said Acton, getting up, "for a man to say something tender to you." This evening there was something particularly striking and touching about her; an unwonted softness and a look of suppressed emotion. He felt himself suddenly appreciating the fact that she had behaved very well. She had come to this quiet corner of the world under the weight of a cruel indignity, and she had been so gracefully, modestly thankful for the rest she found there. She had joined that simple circle over the way; she had mingled in its plain, provincial talk; she had shared its meagre and savorless pleasures. She had set herself a task, and she had rigidly performed it. She had conformed to the angular conditions of New England life, and she had had the tact and pluck to carry it off as if she liked them. Acton felt a more downright need than he had ever felt before to tell her that he admired her and that she struck him as a very superior woman. All along, hitherto, he had been on his guard with her; he had been cautious, observant, suspicious. But now a certain light tumult in his blood seemed to tell him that a finer degree of confidence in this charming woman would be its own reward. "We don't detest you," he went on. "I don't know what you mean. At any rate, I speak for myself; I don't know anything about the others. Very likely, you detest them for the dull life they make you lead. Really, it would give me a sort of pleasure to hear you say so." Eugenia had been looking at the door on the other side of the room; now she slowly turned her eyes toward Robert Acton. "What can be the motive," she asked, "of a man like you--an honest man, a _galant homme_--in saying so base a thing as that?" "Does it sound very base?" asked Acton, candidly. "I suppose it does, and I thank you for telling me so. Of course, I don't mean it literally." The Baroness stood looking at him. "How do you mean it?" she asked. This question was difficult to answer, and Acton, feeling the least bit foolish, walked to the open window and looked out. He stood there, thinking a moment, and then he turned back. "You know that document that you were to send to Germany," he said. "You called it your 'renunciation.' Did you ever send it?" Madame M nster's eyes expanded; she looked very grave. "What a singular answer to my question!" "Oh, it isn't an answer," said Acton. "I have wished to ask you, many times. I thought it probable you would tell me yourself. The question, on my part, seems abrupt now; but it would be abrupt at any time." The Baroness was silent a moment; and then, "I think I have told you too much!" she said. This declaration appeared to Acton to have a certain force; he had indeed a sense of asking more of her than he offered her. He returned to the window, and watched, for a moment, a little star that twinkled through the lattice of the piazza. There were at any rate offers enough he could make; perhaps he had hitherto not been sufficiently explicit in doing so. "I wish you would ask something of me," he presently said. "Is there nothing I can do for you? If you can't stand this dull life any more, let me amuse you!" The Baroness had sunk once more into a chair, and she had taken up a fan which she held, with both hands, to her mouth. Over the top of the fan her eyes were fixed on him. "You are very strange tonight," she said, with a little laugh. "I will do anything in the world," he rejoined, standing in front of her. "Shouldn't you like to travel about and see something of the country? Won't you go to Niagara? You ought to see Niagara, you know." "With you, do you mean?" "I should be delighted to take you." "You alone?" Acton looked at her, smiling, and yet with a serious air. "Well, yes; we might go alone," he said. "If you were not what you are," she answered, "I should feel insulted." "How do you mean--what I am?" "If you were one of the gentlemen I have been used to all my life. If you were not a queer Bostonian." "If the gentlemen you have been used to have taught you to expect insults," said Acton, "I am glad I am what I am. You had much better come to Niagara." "If you wish to 'amuse' me," the Baroness declared, "you need go to no further expense. You amuse me very effectually." He sat down opposite to her; she still held her fan up to her face, with her eyes only showing above it. There was a moment's silence, and then he said, returning to his former question, "Have you sent that document to Germany?" Again there was a moment's silence. The expressive eyes of Madame M nster seemed, however, half to break it. "I will tell you--at Niagara!" she said. She had hardly spoken when the door at the further end of the room opened--the door upon which, some minutes previous, Eugenia had fixed her gaze. Clifford Wentworth stood there, blushing and looking rather awkward. The Baroness rose, quickly, and Acton, more slowly, did the same. Clifford gave him no greeting; he was looking at Eugenia. "Ah, you were here?" exclaimed Acton. "He was in Felix's studio," said Madame M nster. "He wanted to see his sketches." Clifford looked at Robert Acton, but said nothing; he only fanned himself with his hat. "You chose a bad moment," said Acton; "you hadn't much light." "I hadn't any!" said Clifford, laughing. "Your candle went out?" Eugenia asked. "You should have come back here and lighted it again." Clifford looked at her a moment. "So I have--come back. But I have left the candle!" Eugenia turned away. "You are very stupid, my poor boy. You had better go home." "Well," said Clifford, "good-night!" "Haven't you a word to throw to a man when he has safely returned from a dangerous journey?" Acton asked. "How do you do?" said Clifford. "I thought--I thought you were----" and he paused, looking at the Baroness again. "You thought I was at Newport, eh? So I was--this morning." "Good-night, clever child!" said Madame M nster, over her shoulder. Clifford stared at her--not at all like a clever child; and then, with one of his little facetious growls, took his departure. "What is the matter with him?" asked Acton, when he was gone. "He seemed rather in a muddle." Eugenia, who was near the window, glanced out, listening a moment. "The matter--the matter"--she answered. "But you don't say such things here." "If you mean that he had been drinking a little, you can say that." "He doesn't drink any more. I have cured him. And in return--he's in love with me." It was Acton's turn to stare. He instantly thought of his sister; but he said nothing about her. He began to laugh. "I don't wonder at his passion! But I wonder at his forsaking your society for that of your brother's paint-brushes." Eugenia was silent a little. "He had not been in the studio. I invented that at the moment." "Invented it? For what purpose?" "He has an idea of being romantic. He has adopted the habit of coming to see me at midnight--passing only through the orchard and through Felix's painting-room, which has a door opening that way. It seems to amuse him," added Eugenia, with a little laugh. Acton felt more surprise than he confessed to, for this was a new view of Clifford, whose irregularities had hitherto been quite without the romantic element. He tried to laugh again, but he felt rather too serious, and after a moment's hesitation his seriousness explained itself. "I hope you don't encourage him," he said. "He must not be inconstant to poor Lizzie." "To your sister?" "You know they are decidedly intimate," said Acton. "Ah," cried Eugenia, smiling, "has she--has she----" "I don't know," Acton interrupted, "what she has. But I always supposed that Clifford had a desire to make himself agreeable to her." "Ah, _par exemple!_" the Baroness went on. "The little monster! The next time he becomes sentimental I will him tell that he ought to be ashamed of himself." Acton was silent a moment. "You had better say nothing about it." "I had told him as much already, on general grounds," said the Baroness. "But in this country, you know, the relations of young people are so extraordinary that one is quite at sea. They are not engaged when you would quite say they ought to be. Take Charlotte Wentworth, for instance, and that young ecclesiastic. If I were her father I should insist upon his marrying her; but it appears to be thought there is no urgency. On the other hand, you suddenly learn that a boy of twenty and a little girl who is still with her governess--your sister has no governess? Well, then, who is never away from her mamma--a young couple, in short, between whom you have noticed nothing beyond an exchange of the childish pleasantries characteristic of their age, are on the point of setting up as man and wife." The Baroness spoke with a certain exaggerated volubility which was in contrast with the languid grace that had characterized her manner before Clifford made his appearance. It seemed to Acton that there was a spark of irritation in her eye--a note of irony (as when she spoke of Lizzie being never away from her mother) in her voice. If Madame M nster was irritated, Robert Acton was vaguely mystified; she began to move about the room again, and he looked at her without saying anything. Presently she took out her watch, and, glancing at it, declared that it was three o'clock in the morning and that he must go. "I have not been here an hour," he said, "and they are still sitting up at the other house. You can see the lights. Your brother has not come in." "Oh, at the other house," cried Eugenia, "they are terrible people! I don't know what they may do over there. I am a quiet little humdrum woman; I have rigid rules and I keep them. One of them is not to have visitors in the small hours--especially clever men like you. So good-night!" Decidedly, the Baroness was incisive; and though Acton bade her good-night and departed, he was still a good deal mystified. The next day Clifford Wentworth came to see Lizzie, and Acton, who was at home and saw him pass through the garden, took note of the circumstance. He had a natural desire to make it tally with Madame M nster's account of Clifford's disaffection; but his ingenuity, finding itself unequal to the task, resolved at last to ask help of the young man's candor. He waited till he saw him going away, and then he went out and overtook him in the grounds. "I wish very much you would answer me a question," Acton said. "What were you doing, last night, at Madame M nster's?" Clifford began to laugh and to blush, by no means like a young man with a romantic secret. "What did she tell you?" he asked. "That is exactly what I don't want to say." "Well, I want to tell you the same," said Clifford; "and unless I know it perhaps I can't." They had stopped in a garden path; Acton looked hard at his rosy young kinsman. "She said she couldn't fancy what had got into you; you appeared to have taken a violent dislike to her." Clifford stared, looking a little alarmed. "Oh, come," he growled, "you don't mean that!" "And that when--for common civility's sake--you came occasionally to the house you left her alone and spent your time in Felix's studio, under pretext of looking at his sketches." "Oh, come!" growled Clifford, again. "Did you ever know me to tell an untruth?" "Yes, lots of them!" said Clifford, seeing an opening, out of the discussion, for his sarcastic powers. "Well," he presently added, "I thought you were my father." "You knew someone was there?" "We heard you coming in." Acton meditated. "You had been with the Baroness, then?" "I was in the parlor. We heard your step outside. I thought it was my father." "And on that," asked Acton, "you ran away?" "She told me to go--to go out by the studio." Acton meditated more intensely; if there had been a chair at hand he would have sat down. "Why should she wish you not to meet your father?" "Well," said Clifford, "father doesn't like to see me there." Acton looked askance at his companion and forbore to make any comment upon this assertion. "Has he said so," he asked, "to the Baroness?" "Well, I hope not," said Clifford. "He hasn't said so--in so many words--to me. But I know it worries him; and I want to stop worrying him. The Baroness knows it, and she wants me to stop, too." "To stop coming to see her?" "I don't know about that; but to stop worrying father. Eugenia knows everything," Clifford added, with an air of knowingness of his own. "Ah," said Acton, interrogatively, "Eugenia knows everything?" "She knew it was not father coming in." "Then why did you go?" Clifford blushed and laughed afresh. "Well, I was afraid it was. And besides, she told me to go, at any rate." "Did she think it was I?" Acton asked. "She didn't say so." Again Robert Acton reflected. "But you didn't go," he presently said; "you came back." "I couldn't get out of the studio," Clifford rejoined. "The door was locked, and Felix has nailed some planks across the lower half of the confounded windows to make the light come in from above. So they were no use. I waited there a good while, and then, suddenly, I felt ashamed. I didn't want to be hiding away from my own father. I couldn't stand it any longer. I bolted out, and when I found it was you I was a little flurried. But Eugenia carried it off, didn't she?" Clifford added, in the tone of a young humorist whose perception had not been permanently clouded by the sense of his own discomfort. "Beautifully!" said Acton. "Especially," he continued, "when one remembers that you were very imprudent and that she must have been a good deal annoyed." "Oh," cried Clifford, with the indifference of a young man who feels that however he may have failed of felicity in behavior he is extremely just in his impressions, "Eugenia doesn't care for anything!" Acton hesitated a moment. "Thank you for telling me this," he said at last. And then, laying his hand on Clifford's shoulder, he added, "Tell me one thing more: are you by chance a little in love with the Baroness?" "No, sir!" said Clifford, almost shaking off his hand. CHAPTER X The first sunday that followed Robert Acton's return from Newport witnessed a change in the brilliant weather that had long prevailed. The rain began to fall and the day was cold and dreary. Mr. Wentworth and his daughters put on overshoes and went to church, and Felix Young, without overshoes, went also, holding an umbrella over Gertrude. It is to be feared that, in the whole observance, this was the privilege he most highly valued. The Baroness remained at home; she was in neither a cheerful nor a devotional mood. She had, however, never been, during her residence in the United States, what is called a regular attendant at divine service; and on this particular Sunday morning of which I began with speaking she stood at the window of her little drawing-room, watching the long arm of a rose tree that was attached to her piazza, but a portion of which had disengaged itself, sway to and fro, shake and gesticulate, against the dusky drizzle of the sky. Every now and then, in a gust of wind, the rose tree scattered a shower of water-drops against the window-pane; it appeared to have a kind of human movement--a menacing, warning intention. The room was very cold; Madame M nster put on a shawl and walked about. Then she determined to have some fire; and summoning her ancient negress, the contrast of whose polished ebony and whose crimson turban had been at first a source of satisfaction to her, she made arrangements for the production of a crackling flame. This old woman's name was Azarina. The Baroness had begun by thinking that there would be a savory wildness in her talk, and, for amusement, she had encouraged her to chatter. But Azarina was dry and prim; her conversation was anything but African; she reminded Eugenia of the tiresome old ladies she met in society. She knew, however, how to make a fire; so that after she had laid the logs, Eugenia, who was terribly bored, found a quarter of an hour's entertainment in sitting and watching them blaze and sputter. She had thought it very likely Robert Acton would come and see her; she had not met him since that infelicitous evening. But the morning waned without his coming; several times she thought she heard his step on the piazza; but it was only a window-shutter shaking in a rain-gust. The Baroness, since the beginning of that episode in her career of which a slight sketch has been attempted in these pages, had had many moments of irritation. But today her irritation had a peculiar keenness; it appeared to feed upon itself. It urged her to do something; but it suggested no particularly profitable line of action. If she could have done something at the moment, on the spot, she would have stepped upon a European steamer and turned her back, with a kind of rapture, upon that profoundly mortifying failure, her visit to her American relations. It is not exactly apparent why she should have termed this enterprise a failure, inasmuch as she had been treated with the highest distinction for which allowance had been made in American institutions. Her irritation came, at bottom, from the sense, which, always present, had suddenly grown acute, that the social soil on this big, vague continent was somehow not adapted for growing those plants whose fragrance she especially inclined to inhale and by which she liked to see herself surrounded--a species of vegetation for which she carried a collection of seedlings, as we may say, in her pocket. She found her chief happiness in the sense of exerting a certain power and making a certain impression; and now she felt the annoyance of a rather wearied swimmer who, on nearing shore, to land, finds a smooth straight wall of rock when he had counted upon a clean firm beach. Her power, in the American air, seemed to have lost its prehensile attributes; the smooth wall of rock was insurmountable. _"Surely je n'en suis pas l ,"_ she said to herself, "that I let it make me uncomfortable that a Mr. Robert Acton shouldn't honor me with a visit!" Yet she was vexed that he had not come; and she was vexed at her vexation. Her brother, at least, came in, stamping in the hall and shaking the wet from his coat. In a moment he entered the room, with a glow in his cheek and half-a-dozen rain-drops glistening on his moustache. "Ah, you have a fire," he said. _"Les beaux jours sont pass s,"_ replied the Baroness. "Never, never! They have only begun," Felix declared, planting himself before the hearth. He turned his back to the fire, placed his hands behind him, extended his legs and looked away through the window with an expression of face which seemed to denote the perception of rose-color even in the tints of a wet Sunday. His sister, from her chair, looked up at him, watching him; and what she saw in his face was not grateful to her present mood. She was puzzled by many things, but her brother's disposition was a frequent source of wonder to her. I say frequent and not constant, for there were long periods during which she gave her attention to other problems. Sometimes she had said to herself that his happy temper, his eternal gaiety, was an affectation, a _pose_; but she was vaguely conscious that during the present summer he had been a highly successful comedian. They had never yet had an explanation; she had not known the need of one. Felix was presumably following the bent of his disinterested genius, and she felt that she had no advice to give him that he would understand. With this, there was always a certain element of comfort about Felix--the assurance that he would not interfere. He was very delicate, this pure-minded Felix; in effect, he was her brother, and Madame M nster felt that there was a great propriety, every way, in that. It is true that Felix was delicate; he was not fond of explanations with his sister; this was one of the very few things in the world about which he was uncomfortable. But now he was not thinking of anything uncomfortable. "Dear brother," said Eugenia at last, "do stop making _les yeux doux_ at the rain." "With pleasure. I will make them at you!" answered Felix. "How much longer," asked Eugenia, in a moment, "do you propose to remain in this lovely spot?" Felix stared. "Do you want to go away--already?" "'Already' is delicious. I am not so happy as you." Felix dropped into a chair, looking at the fire. "The fact is I _am_ happy," he said in his light, clear tone. "And do you propose to spend your life in making love to Gertrude Wentworth?" "Yes!" said Felix, smiling sidewise at his sister. The Baroness returned his glance, much more gravely; and then, "Do you like her?" she asked. "Don't you?" Felix demanded. The Baroness was silent a moment. "I will answer you in the words of the gentleman who was asked if he liked music: _'Je ne la crains pas!'_" "She admires you immensely," said Felix. "I don't care for that. Other women should not admire one." "They should dislike you?" Again Madame M nster hesitated. "They should hate me! It's a measure of the time I have been losing here that they don't." "No time is lost in which one has been happy!" said Felix, with a bright sententiousness which may well have been a little irritating. "And in which," rejoined his sister, with a harsher laugh, "one has secured the affections of a young lady with a fortune!" Felix explained, very candidly and seriously. "I have secured Gertrude's affection, but I am by no means sure that I have secured her fortune. That may come--or it may not." "Ah, well, it _may!_ That's the great point." "It depends upon her father. He doesn't smile upon our union. You know he wants her to marry Mr. Brand." "I know nothing about it!" cried the Baroness. "Please to put on a log." Felix complied with her request and sat watching the quickening of the flame. Presently his sister added, "And you propose to elope with mademoiselle?" "By no means. I don't wish to do anything that's disagreeable to Mr. Wentworth. He has been far too kind to us." "But you must choose between pleasing yourself and pleasing him." "I want to please everyone!" exclaimed Felix, joyously. "I have a good conscience. I made up my mind at the outset that it was not my place to make love to Gertrude." "So, to simplify matters, she made love to you!" Felix looked at his sister with sudden gravity. "You say you are not afraid of her," he said. "But perhaps you ought to be--a little. She's a very clever person." "I begin to see it!" cried the Baroness. Her brother, making no rejoinder, leaned back in his chair, and there was a long silence. At last, with an altered accent, Madame M nster put another question. "You expect, at any rate, to marry?" "I shall be greatly disappointed if we don't." "A disappointment or two will do you good!" the Baroness declared. "And, afterwards, do you mean to turn American?" "It seems to me I am a very good American already. But we shall go to Europe. Gertrude wants extremely to see the world." "Ah, like me, when I came here!" said the Baroness, with a little laugh. "No, not like you," Felix rejoined, looking at his sister with a certain gentle seriousness. While he looked at her she rose from her chair, and he also got up. "Gertrude is not at all like you," he went on; "but in her own way she is almost as clever." He paused a moment; his soul was full of an agreeable feeling and of a lively disposition to express it. His sister, to his spiritual vision, was always like the lunar disk when only a part of it is lighted. The shadow on this bright surface seemed to him to expand and to contract; but whatever its proportions, he always appreciated the moonlight. He looked at the Baroness, and then he kissed her. "I am very much in | journey | How many times the word 'journey' appears in the text? | 3 |
us," said Acton. "That's what we must keep hold of!" He was too impatient to see Madame M nster again to wonder what Mr. Wentworth was talking about. Nevertheless, after he had passed out of the house and traversed the garden and the little piece of road that separated him from Eugenia's provisional residence, he stopped a moment outside. He stood in her little garden; the long window of her parlor was open, and he could see the white curtains, with the lamp-light shining through them, swaying softly to and fro in the warm night wind. There was a sort of excitement in the idea of seeing Madame M nster again; he became aware that his heart was beating rather faster than usual. It was this that made him stop, with a half-amused surprise. But in a moment he went along the piazza, and, approaching the open window, tapped upon its lintel with his stick. He could see the Baroness within; she was standing in the middle of the room. She came to the window and pulled aside the curtain; then she stood looking at him a moment. She was not smiling; she seemed serious. _"Mais entrez donc!"_ she said at last. Acton passed in across the window-sill; he wondered, for an instant, what was the matter with her. But the next moment she had begun to smile and had put out her hand. "Better late than never," she said. "It is very kind of you to come at this hour." "I have just returned from my journey," said Acton. "Ah, very kind, very kind," she repeated, looking about her where to sit. "I went first to the other house," Acton continued. "I expected to find you there." She had sunk into her usual chair; but she got up again, and began to move about the room. Acton had laid down his hat and stick; he was looking at her, conscious that there was in fact a great charm in seeing her again. "I don't know whether I ought to tell you to sit down," she said. "It is too late to begin a visit." "It's too early to end one," Acton declared; "and we needn't mind the beginning." She looked at him again, and, after a moment, dropped once more into her low chair, while he took a place near her. "We are in the middle, then?" she asked. "Was that where we were when you went away? No, I haven't been to the other house." "Not yesterday, nor the day before, eh?" "I don't know how many days it is." "You are tired of it," said Acton. She leaned back in her chair; her arms were folded. "That is a terrible accusation, but I have not the courage to defend myself." "I am not attacking you," said Acton. "I expected something of this kind." "It's a proof of extreme intelligence. I hope you enjoyed your journey." "Not at all," Acton declared. "I would much rather have been here with you." "Now you _are_ attacking me," said the Baroness. "You are contrasting my inconstancy with your own fidelity." "I confess I never get tired of people I like." "Ah, you are not a poor wicked foreign woman, with irritable nerves and a sophisticated mind!" "Something has happened to you since I went away," said Acton, changing his place. "Your going away--that is what has happened to me." "Do you mean to say that you have missed me?" he asked. "If I had meant to say it, it would not be worth your making a note of. I am very dishonest and my compliments are worthless." Acton was silent for some moments. "You have broken down," he said at last. Madame M nster left her chair, and began to move about. "Only for a moment. I shall pull myself together again." "You had better not take it too hard. If you are bored, you needn't be afraid to say so--to me at least." "You shouldn't say such things as that," the Baroness answered. "You should encourage me." "I admire your patience; that is encouraging." "You shouldn't even say that. When you talk of my patience you are disloyal to your own people. Patience implies suffering; and what have I had to suffer?" "Oh, not hunger, not unkindness, certainly," said Acton, laughing. "Nevertheless, we all admire your patience." "You all detest me!" cried the Baroness, with a sudden vehemence, turning her back toward him. "You make it hard," said Acton, getting up, "for a man to say something tender to you." This evening there was something particularly striking and touching about her; an unwonted softness and a look of suppressed emotion. He felt himself suddenly appreciating the fact that she had behaved very well. She had come to this quiet corner of the world under the weight of a cruel indignity, and she had been so gracefully, modestly thankful for the rest she found there. She had joined that simple circle over the way; she had mingled in its plain, provincial talk; she had shared its meagre and savorless pleasures. She had set herself a task, and she had rigidly performed it. She had conformed to the angular conditions of New England life, and she had had the tact and pluck to carry it off as if she liked them. Acton felt a more downright need than he had ever felt before to tell her that he admired her and that she struck him as a very superior woman. All along, hitherto, he had been on his guard with her; he had been cautious, observant, suspicious. But now a certain light tumult in his blood seemed to tell him that a finer degree of confidence in this charming woman would be its own reward. "We don't detest you," he went on. "I don't know what you mean. At any rate, I speak for myself; I don't know anything about the others. Very likely, you detest them for the dull life they make you lead. Really, it would give me a sort of pleasure to hear you say so." Eugenia had been looking at the door on the other side of the room; now she slowly turned her eyes toward Robert Acton. "What can be the motive," she asked, "of a man like you--an honest man, a _galant homme_--in saying so base a thing as that?" "Does it sound very base?" asked Acton, candidly. "I suppose it does, and I thank you for telling me so. Of course, I don't mean it literally." The Baroness stood looking at him. "How do you mean it?" she asked. This question was difficult to answer, and Acton, feeling the least bit foolish, walked to the open window and looked out. He stood there, thinking a moment, and then he turned back. "You know that document that you were to send to Germany," he said. "You called it your 'renunciation.' Did you ever send it?" Madame M nster's eyes expanded; she looked very grave. "What a singular answer to my question!" "Oh, it isn't an answer," said Acton. "I have wished to ask you, many times. I thought it probable you would tell me yourself. The question, on my part, seems abrupt now; but it would be abrupt at any time." The Baroness was silent a moment; and then, "I think I have told you too much!" she said. This declaration appeared to Acton to have a certain force; he had indeed a sense of asking more of her than he offered her. He returned to the window, and watched, for a moment, a little star that twinkled through the lattice of the piazza. There were at any rate offers enough he could make; perhaps he had hitherto not been sufficiently explicit in doing so. "I wish you would ask something of me," he presently said. "Is there nothing I can do for you? If you can't stand this dull life any more, let me amuse you!" The Baroness had sunk once more into a chair, and she had taken up a fan which she held, with both hands, to her mouth. Over the top of the fan her eyes were fixed on him. "You are very strange tonight," she said, with a little laugh. "I will do anything in the world," he rejoined, standing in front of her. "Shouldn't you like to travel about and see something of the country? Won't you go to Niagara? You ought to see Niagara, you know." "With you, do you mean?" "I should be delighted to take you." "You alone?" Acton looked at her, smiling, and yet with a serious air. "Well, yes; we might go alone," he said. "If you were not what you are," she answered, "I should feel insulted." "How do you mean--what I am?" "If you were one of the gentlemen I have been used to all my life. If you were not a queer Bostonian." "If the gentlemen you have been used to have taught you to expect insults," said Acton, "I am glad I am what I am. You had much better come to Niagara." "If you wish to 'amuse' me," the Baroness declared, "you need go to no further expense. You amuse me very effectually." He sat down opposite to her; she still held her fan up to her face, with her eyes only showing above it. There was a moment's silence, and then he said, returning to his former question, "Have you sent that document to Germany?" Again there was a moment's silence. The expressive eyes of Madame M nster seemed, however, half to break it. "I will tell you--at Niagara!" she said. She had hardly spoken when the door at the further end of the room opened--the door upon which, some minutes previous, Eugenia had fixed her gaze. Clifford Wentworth stood there, blushing and looking rather awkward. The Baroness rose, quickly, and Acton, more slowly, did the same. Clifford gave him no greeting; he was looking at Eugenia. "Ah, you were here?" exclaimed Acton. "He was in Felix's studio," said Madame M nster. "He wanted to see his sketches." Clifford looked at Robert Acton, but said nothing; he only fanned himself with his hat. "You chose a bad moment," said Acton; "you hadn't much light." "I hadn't any!" said Clifford, laughing. "Your candle went out?" Eugenia asked. "You should have come back here and lighted it again." Clifford looked at her a moment. "So I have--come back. But I have left the candle!" Eugenia turned away. "You are very stupid, my poor boy. You had better go home." "Well," said Clifford, "good-night!" "Haven't you a word to throw to a man when he has safely returned from a dangerous journey?" Acton asked. "How do you do?" said Clifford. "I thought--I thought you were----" and he paused, looking at the Baroness again. "You thought I was at Newport, eh? So I was--this morning." "Good-night, clever child!" said Madame M nster, over her shoulder. Clifford stared at her--not at all like a clever child; and then, with one of his little facetious growls, took his departure. "What is the matter with him?" asked Acton, when he was gone. "He seemed rather in a muddle." Eugenia, who was near the window, glanced out, listening a moment. "The matter--the matter"--she answered. "But you don't say such things here." "If you mean that he had been drinking a little, you can say that." "He doesn't drink any more. I have cured him. And in return--he's in love with me." It was Acton's turn to stare. He instantly thought of his sister; but he said nothing about her. He began to laugh. "I don't wonder at his passion! But I wonder at his forsaking your society for that of your brother's paint-brushes." Eugenia was silent a little. "He had not been in the studio. I invented that at the moment." "Invented it? For what purpose?" "He has an idea of being romantic. He has adopted the habit of coming to see me at midnight--passing only through the orchard and through Felix's painting-room, which has a door opening that way. It seems to amuse him," added Eugenia, with a little laugh. Acton felt more surprise than he confessed to, for this was a new view of Clifford, whose irregularities had hitherto been quite without the romantic element. He tried to laugh again, but he felt rather too serious, and after a moment's hesitation his seriousness explained itself. "I hope you don't encourage him," he said. "He must not be inconstant to poor Lizzie." "To your sister?" "You know they are decidedly intimate," said Acton. "Ah," cried Eugenia, smiling, "has she--has she----" "I don't know," Acton interrupted, "what she has. But I always supposed that Clifford had a desire to make himself agreeable to her." "Ah, _par exemple!_" the Baroness went on. "The little monster! The next time he becomes sentimental I will him tell that he ought to be ashamed of himself." Acton was silent a moment. "You had better say nothing about it." "I had told him as much already, on general grounds," said the Baroness. "But in this country, you know, the relations of young people are so extraordinary that one is quite at sea. They are not engaged when you would quite say they ought to be. Take Charlotte Wentworth, for instance, and that young ecclesiastic. If I were her father I should insist upon his marrying her; but it appears to be thought there is no urgency. On the other hand, you suddenly learn that a boy of twenty and a little girl who is still with her governess--your sister has no governess? Well, then, who is never away from her mamma--a young couple, in short, between whom you have noticed nothing beyond an exchange of the childish pleasantries characteristic of their age, are on the point of setting up as man and wife." The Baroness spoke with a certain exaggerated volubility which was in contrast with the languid grace that had characterized her manner before Clifford made his appearance. It seemed to Acton that there was a spark of irritation in her eye--a note of irony (as when she spoke of Lizzie being never away from her mother) in her voice. If Madame M nster was irritated, Robert Acton was vaguely mystified; she began to move about the room again, and he looked at her without saying anything. Presently she took out her watch, and, glancing at it, declared that it was three o'clock in the morning and that he must go. "I have not been here an hour," he said, "and they are still sitting up at the other house. You can see the lights. Your brother has not come in." "Oh, at the other house," cried Eugenia, "they are terrible people! I don't know what they may do over there. I am a quiet little humdrum woman; I have rigid rules and I keep them. One of them is not to have visitors in the small hours--especially clever men like you. So good-night!" Decidedly, the Baroness was incisive; and though Acton bade her good-night and departed, he was still a good deal mystified. The next day Clifford Wentworth came to see Lizzie, and Acton, who was at home and saw him pass through the garden, took note of the circumstance. He had a natural desire to make it tally with Madame M nster's account of Clifford's disaffection; but his ingenuity, finding itself unequal to the task, resolved at last to ask help of the young man's candor. He waited till he saw him going away, and then he went out and overtook him in the grounds. "I wish very much you would answer me a question," Acton said. "What were you doing, last night, at Madame M nster's?" Clifford began to laugh and to blush, by no means like a young man with a romantic secret. "What did she tell you?" he asked. "That is exactly what I don't want to say." "Well, I want to tell you the same," said Clifford; "and unless I know it perhaps I can't." They had stopped in a garden path; Acton looked hard at his rosy young kinsman. "She said she couldn't fancy what had got into you; you appeared to have taken a violent dislike to her." Clifford stared, looking a little alarmed. "Oh, come," he growled, "you don't mean that!" "And that when--for common civility's sake--you came occasionally to the house you left her alone and spent your time in Felix's studio, under pretext of looking at his sketches." "Oh, come!" growled Clifford, again. "Did you ever know me to tell an untruth?" "Yes, lots of them!" said Clifford, seeing an opening, out of the discussion, for his sarcastic powers. "Well," he presently added, "I thought you were my father." "You knew someone was there?" "We heard you coming in." Acton meditated. "You had been with the Baroness, then?" "I was in the parlor. We heard your step outside. I thought it was my father." "And on that," asked Acton, "you ran away?" "She told me to go--to go out by the studio." Acton meditated more intensely; if there had been a chair at hand he would have sat down. "Why should she wish you not to meet your father?" "Well," said Clifford, "father doesn't like to see me there." Acton looked askance at his companion and forbore to make any comment upon this assertion. "Has he said so," he asked, "to the Baroness?" "Well, I hope not," said Clifford. "He hasn't said so--in so many words--to me. But I know it worries him; and I want to stop worrying him. The Baroness knows it, and she wants me to stop, too." "To stop coming to see her?" "I don't know about that; but to stop worrying father. Eugenia knows everything," Clifford added, with an air of knowingness of his own. "Ah," said Acton, interrogatively, "Eugenia knows everything?" "She knew it was not father coming in." "Then why did you go?" Clifford blushed and laughed afresh. "Well, I was afraid it was. And besides, she told me to go, at any rate." "Did she think it was I?" Acton asked. "She didn't say so." Again Robert Acton reflected. "But you didn't go," he presently said; "you came back." "I couldn't get out of the studio," Clifford rejoined. "The door was locked, and Felix has nailed some planks across the lower half of the confounded windows to make the light come in from above. So they were no use. I waited there a good while, and then, suddenly, I felt ashamed. I didn't want to be hiding away from my own father. I couldn't stand it any longer. I bolted out, and when I found it was you I was a little flurried. But Eugenia carried it off, didn't she?" Clifford added, in the tone of a young humorist whose perception had not been permanently clouded by the sense of his own discomfort. "Beautifully!" said Acton. "Especially," he continued, "when one remembers that you were very imprudent and that she must have been a good deal annoyed." "Oh," cried Clifford, with the indifference of a young man who feels that however he may have failed of felicity in behavior he is extremely just in his impressions, "Eugenia doesn't care for anything!" Acton hesitated a moment. "Thank you for telling me this," he said at last. And then, laying his hand on Clifford's shoulder, he added, "Tell me one thing more: are you by chance a little in love with the Baroness?" "No, sir!" said Clifford, almost shaking off his hand. CHAPTER X The first sunday that followed Robert Acton's return from Newport witnessed a change in the brilliant weather that had long prevailed. The rain began to fall and the day was cold and dreary. Mr. Wentworth and his daughters put on overshoes and went to church, and Felix Young, without overshoes, went also, holding an umbrella over Gertrude. It is to be feared that, in the whole observance, this was the privilege he most highly valued. The Baroness remained at home; she was in neither a cheerful nor a devotional mood. She had, however, never been, during her residence in the United States, what is called a regular attendant at divine service; and on this particular Sunday morning of which I began with speaking she stood at the window of her little drawing-room, watching the long arm of a rose tree that was attached to her piazza, but a portion of which had disengaged itself, sway to and fro, shake and gesticulate, against the dusky drizzle of the sky. Every now and then, in a gust of wind, the rose tree scattered a shower of water-drops against the window-pane; it appeared to have a kind of human movement--a menacing, warning intention. The room was very cold; Madame M nster put on a shawl and walked about. Then she determined to have some fire; and summoning her ancient negress, the contrast of whose polished ebony and whose crimson turban had been at first a source of satisfaction to her, she made arrangements for the production of a crackling flame. This old woman's name was Azarina. The Baroness had begun by thinking that there would be a savory wildness in her talk, and, for amusement, she had encouraged her to chatter. But Azarina was dry and prim; her conversation was anything but African; she reminded Eugenia of the tiresome old ladies she met in society. She knew, however, how to make a fire; so that after she had laid the logs, Eugenia, who was terribly bored, found a quarter of an hour's entertainment in sitting and watching them blaze and sputter. She had thought it very likely Robert Acton would come and see her; she had not met him since that infelicitous evening. But the morning waned without his coming; several times she thought she heard his step on the piazza; but it was only a window-shutter shaking in a rain-gust. The Baroness, since the beginning of that episode in her career of which a slight sketch has been attempted in these pages, had had many moments of irritation. But today her irritation had a peculiar keenness; it appeared to feed upon itself. It urged her to do something; but it suggested no particularly profitable line of action. If she could have done something at the moment, on the spot, she would have stepped upon a European steamer and turned her back, with a kind of rapture, upon that profoundly mortifying failure, her visit to her American relations. It is not exactly apparent why she should have termed this enterprise a failure, inasmuch as she had been treated with the highest distinction for which allowance had been made in American institutions. Her irritation came, at bottom, from the sense, which, always present, had suddenly grown acute, that the social soil on this big, vague continent was somehow not adapted for growing those plants whose fragrance she especially inclined to inhale and by which she liked to see herself surrounded--a species of vegetation for which she carried a collection of seedlings, as we may say, in her pocket. She found her chief happiness in the sense of exerting a certain power and making a certain impression; and now she felt the annoyance of a rather wearied swimmer who, on nearing shore, to land, finds a smooth straight wall of rock when he had counted upon a clean firm beach. Her power, in the American air, seemed to have lost its prehensile attributes; the smooth wall of rock was insurmountable. _"Surely je n'en suis pas l ,"_ she said to herself, "that I let it make me uncomfortable that a Mr. Robert Acton shouldn't honor me with a visit!" Yet she was vexed that he had not come; and she was vexed at her vexation. Her brother, at least, came in, stamping in the hall and shaking the wet from his coat. In a moment he entered the room, with a glow in his cheek and half-a-dozen rain-drops glistening on his moustache. "Ah, you have a fire," he said. _"Les beaux jours sont pass s,"_ replied the Baroness. "Never, never! They have only begun," Felix declared, planting himself before the hearth. He turned his back to the fire, placed his hands behind him, extended his legs and looked away through the window with an expression of face which seemed to denote the perception of rose-color even in the tints of a wet Sunday. His sister, from her chair, looked up at him, watching him; and what she saw in his face was not grateful to her present mood. She was puzzled by many things, but her brother's disposition was a frequent source of wonder to her. I say frequent and not constant, for there were long periods during which she gave her attention to other problems. Sometimes she had said to herself that his happy temper, his eternal gaiety, was an affectation, a _pose_; but she was vaguely conscious that during the present summer he had been a highly successful comedian. They had never yet had an explanation; she had not known the need of one. Felix was presumably following the bent of his disinterested genius, and she felt that she had no advice to give him that he would understand. With this, there was always a certain element of comfort about Felix--the assurance that he would not interfere. He was very delicate, this pure-minded Felix; in effect, he was her brother, and Madame M nster felt that there was a great propriety, every way, in that. It is true that Felix was delicate; he was not fond of explanations with his sister; this was one of the very few things in the world about which he was uncomfortable. But now he was not thinking of anything uncomfortable. "Dear brother," said Eugenia at last, "do stop making _les yeux doux_ at the rain." "With pleasure. I will make them at you!" answered Felix. "How much longer," asked Eugenia, in a moment, "do you propose to remain in this lovely spot?" Felix stared. "Do you want to go away--already?" "'Already' is delicious. I am not so happy as you." Felix dropped into a chair, looking at the fire. "The fact is I _am_ happy," he said in his light, clear tone. "And do you propose to spend your life in making love to Gertrude Wentworth?" "Yes!" said Felix, smiling sidewise at his sister. The Baroness returned his glance, much more gravely; and then, "Do you like her?" she asked. "Don't you?" Felix demanded. The Baroness was silent a moment. "I will answer you in the words of the gentleman who was asked if he liked music: _'Je ne la crains pas!'_" "She admires you immensely," said Felix. "I don't care for that. Other women should not admire one." "They should dislike you?" Again Madame M nster hesitated. "They should hate me! It's a measure of the time I have been losing here that they don't." "No time is lost in which one has been happy!" said Felix, with a bright sententiousness which may well have been a little irritating. "And in which," rejoined his sister, with a harsher laugh, "one has secured the affections of a young lady with a fortune!" Felix explained, very candidly and seriously. "I have secured Gertrude's affection, but I am by no means sure that I have secured her fortune. That may come--or it may not." "Ah, well, it _may!_ That's the great point." "It depends upon her father. He doesn't smile upon our union. You know he wants her to marry Mr. Brand." "I know nothing about it!" cried the Baroness. "Please to put on a log." Felix complied with her request and sat watching the quickening of the flame. Presently his sister added, "And you propose to elope with mademoiselle?" "By no means. I don't wish to do anything that's disagreeable to Mr. Wentworth. He has been far too kind to us." "But you must choose between pleasing yourself and pleasing him." "I want to please everyone!" exclaimed Felix, joyously. "I have a good conscience. I made up my mind at the outset that it was not my place to make love to Gertrude." "So, to simplify matters, she made love to you!" Felix looked at his sister with sudden gravity. "You say you are not afraid of her," he said. "But perhaps you ought to be--a little. She's a very clever person." "I begin to see it!" cried the Baroness. Her brother, making no rejoinder, leaned back in his chair, and there was a long silence. At last, with an altered accent, Madame M nster put another question. "You expect, at any rate, to marry?" "I shall be greatly disappointed if we don't." "A disappointment or two will do you good!" the Baroness declared. "And, afterwards, do you mean to turn American?" "It seems to me I am a very good American already. But we shall go to Europe. Gertrude wants extremely to see the world." "Ah, like me, when I came here!" said the Baroness, with a little laugh. "No, not like you," Felix rejoined, looking at his sister with a certain gentle seriousness. While he looked at her she rose from her chair, and he also got up. "Gertrude is not at all like you," he went on; "but in her own way she is almost as clever." He paused a moment; his soul was full of an agreeable feeling and of a lively disposition to express it. His sister, to his spiritual vision, was always like the lunar disk when only a part of it is lighted. The shadow on this bright surface seemed to him to expand and to contract; but whatever its proportions, he always appreciated the moonlight. He looked at the Baroness, and then he kissed her. "I am very much in | fan | How many times the word 'fan' appears in the text? | 3 |
us," said Acton. "That's what we must keep hold of!" He was too impatient to see Madame M nster again to wonder what Mr. Wentworth was talking about. Nevertheless, after he had passed out of the house and traversed the garden and the little piece of road that separated him from Eugenia's provisional residence, he stopped a moment outside. He stood in her little garden; the long window of her parlor was open, and he could see the white curtains, with the lamp-light shining through them, swaying softly to and fro in the warm night wind. There was a sort of excitement in the idea of seeing Madame M nster again; he became aware that his heart was beating rather faster than usual. It was this that made him stop, with a half-amused surprise. But in a moment he went along the piazza, and, approaching the open window, tapped upon its lintel with his stick. He could see the Baroness within; she was standing in the middle of the room. She came to the window and pulled aside the curtain; then she stood looking at him a moment. She was not smiling; she seemed serious. _"Mais entrez donc!"_ she said at last. Acton passed in across the window-sill; he wondered, for an instant, what was the matter with her. But the next moment she had begun to smile and had put out her hand. "Better late than never," she said. "It is very kind of you to come at this hour." "I have just returned from my journey," said Acton. "Ah, very kind, very kind," she repeated, looking about her where to sit. "I went first to the other house," Acton continued. "I expected to find you there." She had sunk into her usual chair; but she got up again, and began to move about the room. Acton had laid down his hat and stick; he was looking at her, conscious that there was in fact a great charm in seeing her again. "I don't know whether I ought to tell you to sit down," she said. "It is too late to begin a visit." "It's too early to end one," Acton declared; "and we needn't mind the beginning." She looked at him again, and, after a moment, dropped once more into her low chair, while he took a place near her. "We are in the middle, then?" she asked. "Was that where we were when you went away? No, I haven't been to the other house." "Not yesterday, nor the day before, eh?" "I don't know how many days it is." "You are tired of it," said Acton. She leaned back in her chair; her arms were folded. "That is a terrible accusation, but I have not the courage to defend myself." "I am not attacking you," said Acton. "I expected something of this kind." "It's a proof of extreme intelligence. I hope you enjoyed your journey." "Not at all," Acton declared. "I would much rather have been here with you." "Now you _are_ attacking me," said the Baroness. "You are contrasting my inconstancy with your own fidelity." "I confess I never get tired of people I like." "Ah, you are not a poor wicked foreign woman, with irritable nerves and a sophisticated mind!" "Something has happened to you since I went away," said Acton, changing his place. "Your going away--that is what has happened to me." "Do you mean to say that you have missed me?" he asked. "If I had meant to say it, it would not be worth your making a note of. I am very dishonest and my compliments are worthless." Acton was silent for some moments. "You have broken down," he said at last. Madame M nster left her chair, and began to move about. "Only for a moment. I shall pull myself together again." "You had better not take it too hard. If you are bored, you needn't be afraid to say so--to me at least." "You shouldn't say such things as that," the Baroness answered. "You should encourage me." "I admire your patience; that is encouraging." "You shouldn't even say that. When you talk of my patience you are disloyal to your own people. Patience implies suffering; and what have I had to suffer?" "Oh, not hunger, not unkindness, certainly," said Acton, laughing. "Nevertheless, we all admire your patience." "You all detest me!" cried the Baroness, with a sudden vehemence, turning her back toward him. "You make it hard," said Acton, getting up, "for a man to say something tender to you." This evening there was something particularly striking and touching about her; an unwonted softness and a look of suppressed emotion. He felt himself suddenly appreciating the fact that she had behaved very well. She had come to this quiet corner of the world under the weight of a cruel indignity, and she had been so gracefully, modestly thankful for the rest she found there. She had joined that simple circle over the way; she had mingled in its plain, provincial talk; she had shared its meagre and savorless pleasures. She had set herself a task, and she had rigidly performed it. She had conformed to the angular conditions of New England life, and she had had the tact and pluck to carry it off as if she liked them. Acton felt a more downright need than he had ever felt before to tell her that he admired her and that she struck him as a very superior woman. All along, hitherto, he had been on his guard with her; he had been cautious, observant, suspicious. But now a certain light tumult in his blood seemed to tell him that a finer degree of confidence in this charming woman would be its own reward. "We don't detest you," he went on. "I don't know what you mean. At any rate, I speak for myself; I don't know anything about the others. Very likely, you detest them for the dull life they make you lead. Really, it would give me a sort of pleasure to hear you say so." Eugenia had been looking at the door on the other side of the room; now she slowly turned her eyes toward Robert Acton. "What can be the motive," she asked, "of a man like you--an honest man, a _galant homme_--in saying so base a thing as that?" "Does it sound very base?" asked Acton, candidly. "I suppose it does, and I thank you for telling me so. Of course, I don't mean it literally." The Baroness stood looking at him. "How do you mean it?" she asked. This question was difficult to answer, and Acton, feeling the least bit foolish, walked to the open window and looked out. He stood there, thinking a moment, and then he turned back. "You know that document that you were to send to Germany," he said. "You called it your 'renunciation.' Did you ever send it?" Madame M nster's eyes expanded; she looked very grave. "What a singular answer to my question!" "Oh, it isn't an answer," said Acton. "I have wished to ask you, many times. I thought it probable you would tell me yourself. The question, on my part, seems abrupt now; but it would be abrupt at any time." The Baroness was silent a moment; and then, "I think I have told you too much!" she said. This declaration appeared to Acton to have a certain force; he had indeed a sense of asking more of her than he offered her. He returned to the window, and watched, for a moment, a little star that twinkled through the lattice of the piazza. There were at any rate offers enough he could make; perhaps he had hitherto not been sufficiently explicit in doing so. "I wish you would ask something of me," he presently said. "Is there nothing I can do for you? If you can't stand this dull life any more, let me amuse you!" The Baroness had sunk once more into a chair, and she had taken up a fan which she held, with both hands, to her mouth. Over the top of the fan her eyes were fixed on him. "You are very strange tonight," she said, with a little laugh. "I will do anything in the world," he rejoined, standing in front of her. "Shouldn't you like to travel about and see something of the country? Won't you go to Niagara? You ought to see Niagara, you know." "With you, do you mean?" "I should be delighted to take you." "You alone?" Acton looked at her, smiling, and yet with a serious air. "Well, yes; we might go alone," he said. "If you were not what you are," she answered, "I should feel insulted." "How do you mean--what I am?" "If you were one of the gentlemen I have been used to all my life. If you were not a queer Bostonian." "If the gentlemen you have been used to have taught you to expect insults," said Acton, "I am glad I am what I am. You had much better come to Niagara." "If you wish to 'amuse' me," the Baroness declared, "you need go to no further expense. You amuse me very effectually." He sat down opposite to her; she still held her fan up to her face, with her eyes only showing above it. There was a moment's silence, and then he said, returning to his former question, "Have you sent that document to Germany?" Again there was a moment's silence. The expressive eyes of Madame M nster seemed, however, half to break it. "I will tell you--at Niagara!" she said. She had hardly spoken when the door at the further end of the room opened--the door upon which, some minutes previous, Eugenia had fixed her gaze. Clifford Wentworth stood there, blushing and looking rather awkward. The Baroness rose, quickly, and Acton, more slowly, did the same. Clifford gave him no greeting; he was looking at Eugenia. "Ah, you were here?" exclaimed Acton. "He was in Felix's studio," said Madame M nster. "He wanted to see his sketches." Clifford looked at Robert Acton, but said nothing; he only fanned himself with his hat. "You chose a bad moment," said Acton; "you hadn't much light." "I hadn't any!" said Clifford, laughing. "Your candle went out?" Eugenia asked. "You should have come back here and lighted it again." Clifford looked at her a moment. "So I have--come back. But I have left the candle!" Eugenia turned away. "You are very stupid, my poor boy. You had better go home." "Well," said Clifford, "good-night!" "Haven't you a word to throw to a man when he has safely returned from a dangerous journey?" Acton asked. "How do you do?" said Clifford. "I thought--I thought you were----" and he paused, looking at the Baroness again. "You thought I was at Newport, eh? So I was--this morning." "Good-night, clever child!" said Madame M nster, over her shoulder. Clifford stared at her--not at all like a clever child; and then, with one of his little facetious growls, took his departure. "What is the matter with him?" asked Acton, when he was gone. "He seemed rather in a muddle." Eugenia, who was near the window, glanced out, listening a moment. "The matter--the matter"--she answered. "But you don't say such things here." "If you mean that he had been drinking a little, you can say that." "He doesn't drink any more. I have cured him. And in return--he's in love with me." It was Acton's turn to stare. He instantly thought of his sister; but he said nothing about her. He began to laugh. "I don't wonder at his passion! But I wonder at his forsaking your society for that of your brother's paint-brushes." Eugenia was silent a little. "He had not been in the studio. I invented that at the moment." "Invented it? For what purpose?" "He has an idea of being romantic. He has adopted the habit of coming to see me at midnight--passing only through the orchard and through Felix's painting-room, which has a door opening that way. It seems to amuse him," added Eugenia, with a little laugh. Acton felt more surprise than he confessed to, for this was a new view of Clifford, whose irregularities had hitherto been quite without the romantic element. He tried to laugh again, but he felt rather too serious, and after a moment's hesitation his seriousness explained itself. "I hope you don't encourage him," he said. "He must not be inconstant to poor Lizzie." "To your sister?" "You know they are decidedly intimate," said Acton. "Ah," cried Eugenia, smiling, "has she--has she----" "I don't know," Acton interrupted, "what she has. But I always supposed that Clifford had a desire to make himself agreeable to her." "Ah, _par exemple!_" the Baroness went on. "The little monster! The next time he becomes sentimental I will him tell that he ought to be ashamed of himself." Acton was silent a moment. "You had better say nothing about it." "I had told him as much already, on general grounds," said the Baroness. "But in this country, you know, the relations of young people are so extraordinary that one is quite at sea. They are not engaged when you would quite say they ought to be. Take Charlotte Wentworth, for instance, and that young ecclesiastic. If I were her father I should insist upon his marrying her; but it appears to be thought there is no urgency. On the other hand, you suddenly learn that a boy of twenty and a little girl who is still with her governess--your sister has no governess? Well, then, who is never away from her mamma--a young couple, in short, between whom you have noticed nothing beyond an exchange of the childish pleasantries characteristic of their age, are on the point of setting up as man and wife." The Baroness spoke with a certain exaggerated volubility which was in contrast with the languid grace that had characterized her manner before Clifford made his appearance. It seemed to Acton that there was a spark of irritation in her eye--a note of irony (as when she spoke of Lizzie being never away from her mother) in her voice. If Madame M nster was irritated, Robert Acton was vaguely mystified; she began to move about the room again, and he looked at her without saying anything. Presently she took out her watch, and, glancing at it, declared that it was three o'clock in the morning and that he must go. "I have not been here an hour," he said, "and they are still sitting up at the other house. You can see the lights. Your brother has not come in." "Oh, at the other house," cried Eugenia, "they are terrible people! I don't know what they may do over there. I am a quiet little humdrum woman; I have rigid rules and I keep them. One of them is not to have visitors in the small hours--especially clever men like you. So good-night!" Decidedly, the Baroness was incisive; and though Acton bade her good-night and departed, he was still a good deal mystified. The next day Clifford Wentworth came to see Lizzie, and Acton, who was at home and saw him pass through the garden, took note of the circumstance. He had a natural desire to make it tally with Madame M nster's account of Clifford's disaffection; but his ingenuity, finding itself unequal to the task, resolved at last to ask help of the young man's candor. He waited till he saw him going away, and then he went out and overtook him in the grounds. "I wish very much you would answer me a question," Acton said. "What were you doing, last night, at Madame M nster's?" Clifford began to laugh and to blush, by no means like a young man with a romantic secret. "What did she tell you?" he asked. "That is exactly what I don't want to say." "Well, I want to tell you the same," said Clifford; "and unless I know it perhaps I can't." They had stopped in a garden path; Acton looked hard at his rosy young kinsman. "She said she couldn't fancy what had got into you; you appeared to have taken a violent dislike to her." Clifford stared, looking a little alarmed. "Oh, come," he growled, "you don't mean that!" "And that when--for common civility's sake--you came occasionally to the house you left her alone and spent your time in Felix's studio, under pretext of looking at his sketches." "Oh, come!" growled Clifford, again. "Did you ever know me to tell an untruth?" "Yes, lots of them!" said Clifford, seeing an opening, out of the discussion, for his sarcastic powers. "Well," he presently added, "I thought you were my father." "You knew someone was there?" "We heard you coming in." Acton meditated. "You had been with the Baroness, then?" "I was in the parlor. We heard your step outside. I thought it was my father." "And on that," asked Acton, "you ran away?" "She told me to go--to go out by the studio." Acton meditated more intensely; if there had been a chair at hand he would have sat down. "Why should she wish you not to meet your father?" "Well," said Clifford, "father doesn't like to see me there." Acton looked askance at his companion and forbore to make any comment upon this assertion. "Has he said so," he asked, "to the Baroness?" "Well, I hope not," said Clifford. "He hasn't said so--in so many words--to me. But I know it worries him; and I want to stop worrying him. The Baroness knows it, and she wants me to stop, too." "To stop coming to see her?" "I don't know about that; but to stop worrying father. Eugenia knows everything," Clifford added, with an air of knowingness of his own. "Ah," said Acton, interrogatively, "Eugenia knows everything?" "She knew it was not father coming in." "Then why did you go?" Clifford blushed and laughed afresh. "Well, I was afraid it was. And besides, she told me to go, at any rate." "Did she think it was I?" Acton asked. "She didn't say so." Again Robert Acton reflected. "But you didn't go," he presently said; "you came back." "I couldn't get out of the studio," Clifford rejoined. "The door was locked, and Felix has nailed some planks across the lower half of the confounded windows to make the light come in from above. So they were no use. I waited there a good while, and then, suddenly, I felt ashamed. I didn't want to be hiding away from my own father. I couldn't stand it any longer. I bolted out, and when I found it was you I was a little flurried. But Eugenia carried it off, didn't she?" Clifford added, in the tone of a young humorist whose perception had not been permanently clouded by the sense of his own discomfort. "Beautifully!" said Acton. "Especially," he continued, "when one remembers that you were very imprudent and that she must have been a good deal annoyed." "Oh," cried Clifford, with the indifference of a young man who feels that however he may have failed of felicity in behavior he is extremely just in his impressions, "Eugenia doesn't care for anything!" Acton hesitated a moment. "Thank you for telling me this," he said at last. And then, laying his hand on Clifford's shoulder, he added, "Tell me one thing more: are you by chance a little in love with the Baroness?" "No, sir!" said Clifford, almost shaking off his hand. CHAPTER X The first sunday that followed Robert Acton's return from Newport witnessed a change in the brilliant weather that had long prevailed. The rain began to fall and the day was cold and dreary. Mr. Wentworth and his daughters put on overshoes and went to church, and Felix Young, without overshoes, went also, holding an umbrella over Gertrude. It is to be feared that, in the whole observance, this was the privilege he most highly valued. The Baroness remained at home; she was in neither a cheerful nor a devotional mood. She had, however, never been, during her residence in the United States, what is called a regular attendant at divine service; and on this particular Sunday morning of which I began with speaking she stood at the window of her little drawing-room, watching the long arm of a rose tree that was attached to her piazza, but a portion of which had disengaged itself, sway to and fro, shake and gesticulate, against the dusky drizzle of the sky. Every now and then, in a gust of wind, the rose tree scattered a shower of water-drops against the window-pane; it appeared to have a kind of human movement--a menacing, warning intention. The room was very cold; Madame M nster put on a shawl and walked about. Then she determined to have some fire; and summoning her ancient negress, the contrast of whose polished ebony and whose crimson turban had been at first a source of satisfaction to her, she made arrangements for the production of a crackling flame. This old woman's name was Azarina. The Baroness had begun by thinking that there would be a savory wildness in her talk, and, for amusement, she had encouraged her to chatter. But Azarina was dry and prim; her conversation was anything but African; she reminded Eugenia of the tiresome old ladies she met in society. She knew, however, how to make a fire; so that after she had laid the logs, Eugenia, who was terribly bored, found a quarter of an hour's entertainment in sitting and watching them blaze and sputter. She had thought it very likely Robert Acton would come and see her; she had not met him since that infelicitous evening. But the morning waned without his coming; several times she thought she heard his step on the piazza; but it was only a window-shutter shaking in a rain-gust. The Baroness, since the beginning of that episode in her career of which a slight sketch has been attempted in these pages, had had many moments of irritation. But today her irritation had a peculiar keenness; it appeared to feed upon itself. It urged her to do something; but it suggested no particularly profitable line of action. If she could have done something at the moment, on the spot, she would have stepped upon a European steamer and turned her back, with a kind of rapture, upon that profoundly mortifying failure, her visit to her American relations. It is not exactly apparent why she should have termed this enterprise a failure, inasmuch as she had been treated with the highest distinction for which allowance had been made in American institutions. Her irritation came, at bottom, from the sense, which, always present, had suddenly grown acute, that the social soil on this big, vague continent was somehow not adapted for growing those plants whose fragrance she especially inclined to inhale and by which she liked to see herself surrounded--a species of vegetation for which she carried a collection of seedlings, as we may say, in her pocket. She found her chief happiness in the sense of exerting a certain power and making a certain impression; and now she felt the annoyance of a rather wearied swimmer who, on nearing shore, to land, finds a smooth straight wall of rock when he had counted upon a clean firm beach. Her power, in the American air, seemed to have lost its prehensile attributes; the smooth wall of rock was insurmountable. _"Surely je n'en suis pas l ,"_ she said to herself, "that I let it make me uncomfortable that a Mr. Robert Acton shouldn't honor me with a visit!" Yet she was vexed that he had not come; and she was vexed at her vexation. Her brother, at least, came in, stamping in the hall and shaking the wet from his coat. In a moment he entered the room, with a glow in his cheek and half-a-dozen rain-drops glistening on his moustache. "Ah, you have a fire," he said. _"Les beaux jours sont pass s,"_ replied the Baroness. "Never, never! They have only begun," Felix declared, planting himself before the hearth. He turned his back to the fire, placed his hands behind him, extended his legs and looked away through the window with an expression of face which seemed to denote the perception of rose-color even in the tints of a wet Sunday. His sister, from her chair, looked up at him, watching him; and what she saw in his face was not grateful to her present mood. She was puzzled by many things, but her brother's disposition was a frequent source of wonder to her. I say frequent and not constant, for there were long periods during which she gave her attention to other problems. Sometimes she had said to herself that his happy temper, his eternal gaiety, was an affectation, a _pose_; but she was vaguely conscious that during the present summer he had been a highly successful comedian. They had never yet had an explanation; she had not known the need of one. Felix was presumably following the bent of his disinterested genius, and she felt that she had no advice to give him that he would understand. With this, there was always a certain element of comfort about Felix--the assurance that he would not interfere. He was very delicate, this pure-minded Felix; in effect, he was her brother, and Madame M nster felt that there was a great propriety, every way, in that. It is true that Felix was delicate; he was not fond of explanations with his sister; this was one of the very few things in the world about which he was uncomfortable. But now he was not thinking of anything uncomfortable. "Dear brother," said Eugenia at last, "do stop making _les yeux doux_ at the rain." "With pleasure. I will make them at you!" answered Felix. "How much longer," asked Eugenia, in a moment, "do you propose to remain in this lovely spot?" Felix stared. "Do you want to go away--already?" "'Already' is delicious. I am not so happy as you." Felix dropped into a chair, looking at the fire. "The fact is I _am_ happy," he said in his light, clear tone. "And do you propose to spend your life in making love to Gertrude Wentworth?" "Yes!" said Felix, smiling sidewise at his sister. The Baroness returned his glance, much more gravely; and then, "Do you like her?" she asked. "Don't you?" Felix demanded. The Baroness was silent a moment. "I will answer you in the words of the gentleman who was asked if he liked music: _'Je ne la crains pas!'_" "She admires you immensely," said Felix. "I don't care for that. Other women should not admire one." "They should dislike you?" Again Madame M nster hesitated. "They should hate me! It's a measure of the time I have been losing here that they don't." "No time is lost in which one has been happy!" said Felix, with a bright sententiousness which may well have been a little irritating. "And in which," rejoined his sister, with a harsher laugh, "one has secured the affections of a young lady with a fortune!" Felix explained, very candidly and seriously. "I have secured Gertrude's affection, but I am by no means sure that I have secured her fortune. That may come--or it may not." "Ah, well, it _may!_ That's the great point." "It depends upon her father. He doesn't smile upon our union. You know he wants her to marry Mr. Brand." "I know nothing about it!" cried the Baroness. "Please to put on a log." Felix complied with her request and sat watching the quickening of the flame. Presently his sister added, "And you propose to elope with mademoiselle?" "By no means. I don't wish to do anything that's disagreeable to Mr. Wentworth. He has been far too kind to us." "But you must choose between pleasing yourself and pleasing him." "I want to please everyone!" exclaimed Felix, joyously. "I have a good conscience. I made up my mind at the outset that it was not my place to make love to Gertrude." "So, to simplify matters, she made love to you!" Felix looked at his sister with sudden gravity. "You say you are not afraid of her," he said. "But perhaps you ought to be--a little. She's a very clever person." "I begin to see it!" cried the Baroness. Her brother, making no rejoinder, leaned back in his chair, and there was a long silence. At last, with an altered accent, Madame M nster put another question. "You expect, at any rate, to marry?" "I shall be greatly disappointed if we don't." "A disappointment or two will do you good!" the Baroness declared. "And, afterwards, do you mean to turn American?" "It seems to me I am a very good American already. But we shall go to Europe. Gertrude wants extremely to see the world." "Ah, like me, when I came here!" said the Baroness, with a little laugh. "No, not like you," Felix rejoined, looking at his sister with a certain gentle seriousness. While he looked at her she rose from her chair, and he also got up. "Gertrude is not at all like you," he went on; "but in her own way she is almost as clever." He paused a moment; his soul was full of an agreeable feeling and of a lively disposition to express it. His sister, to his spiritual vision, was always like the lunar disk when only a part of it is lighted. The shadow on this bright surface seemed to him to expand and to contract; but whatever its proportions, he always appreciated the moonlight. He looked at the Baroness, and then he kissed her. "I am very much in | cut | How many times the word 'cut' appears in the text? | 0 |
us," said Acton. "That's what we must keep hold of!" He was too impatient to see Madame M nster again to wonder what Mr. Wentworth was talking about. Nevertheless, after he had passed out of the house and traversed the garden and the little piece of road that separated him from Eugenia's provisional residence, he stopped a moment outside. He stood in her little garden; the long window of her parlor was open, and he could see the white curtains, with the lamp-light shining through them, swaying softly to and fro in the warm night wind. There was a sort of excitement in the idea of seeing Madame M nster again; he became aware that his heart was beating rather faster than usual. It was this that made him stop, with a half-amused surprise. But in a moment he went along the piazza, and, approaching the open window, tapped upon its lintel with his stick. He could see the Baroness within; she was standing in the middle of the room. She came to the window and pulled aside the curtain; then she stood looking at him a moment. She was not smiling; she seemed serious. _"Mais entrez donc!"_ she said at last. Acton passed in across the window-sill; he wondered, for an instant, what was the matter with her. But the next moment she had begun to smile and had put out her hand. "Better late than never," she said. "It is very kind of you to come at this hour." "I have just returned from my journey," said Acton. "Ah, very kind, very kind," she repeated, looking about her where to sit. "I went first to the other house," Acton continued. "I expected to find you there." She had sunk into her usual chair; but she got up again, and began to move about the room. Acton had laid down his hat and stick; he was looking at her, conscious that there was in fact a great charm in seeing her again. "I don't know whether I ought to tell you to sit down," she said. "It is too late to begin a visit." "It's too early to end one," Acton declared; "and we needn't mind the beginning." She looked at him again, and, after a moment, dropped once more into her low chair, while he took a place near her. "We are in the middle, then?" she asked. "Was that where we were when you went away? No, I haven't been to the other house." "Not yesterday, nor the day before, eh?" "I don't know how many days it is." "You are tired of it," said Acton. She leaned back in her chair; her arms were folded. "That is a terrible accusation, but I have not the courage to defend myself." "I am not attacking you," said Acton. "I expected something of this kind." "It's a proof of extreme intelligence. I hope you enjoyed your journey." "Not at all," Acton declared. "I would much rather have been here with you." "Now you _are_ attacking me," said the Baroness. "You are contrasting my inconstancy with your own fidelity." "I confess I never get tired of people I like." "Ah, you are not a poor wicked foreign woman, with irritable nerves and a sophisticated mind!" "Something has happened to you since I went away," said Acton, changing his place. "Your going away--that is what has happened to me." "Do you mean to say that you have missed me?" he asked. "If I had meant to say it, it would not be worth your making a note of. I am very dishonest and my compliments are worthless." Acton was silent for some moments. "You have broken down," he said at last. Madame M nster left her chair, and began to move about. "Only for a moment. I shall pull myself together again." "You had better not take it too hard. If you are bored, you needn't be afraid to say so--to me at least." "You shouldn't say such things as that," the Baroness answered. "You should encourage me." "I admire your patience; that is encouraging." "You shouldn't even say that. When you talk of my patience you are disloyal to your own people. Patience implies suffering; and what have I had to suffer?" "Oh, not hunger, not unkindness, certainly," said Acton, laughing. "Nevertheless, we all admire your patience." "You all detest me!" cried the Baroness, with a sudden vehemence, turning her back toward him. "You make it hard," said Acton, getting up, "for a man to say something tender to you." This evening there was something particularly striking and touching about her; an unwonted softness and a look of suppressed emotion. He felt himself suddenly appreciating the fact that she had behaved very well. She had come to this quiet corner of the world under the weight of a cruel indignity, and she had been so gracefully, modestly thankful for the rest she found there. She had joined that simple circle over the way; she had mingled in its plain, provincial talk; she had shared its meagre and savorless pleasures. She had set herself a task, and she had rigidly performed it. She had conformed to the angular conditions of New England life, and she had had the tact and pluck to carry it off as if she liked them. Acton felt a more downright need than he had ever felt before to tell her that he admired her and that she struck him as a very superior woman. All along, hitherto, he had been on his guard with her; he had been cautious, observant, suspicious. But now a certain light tumult in his blood seemed to tell him that a finer degree of confidence in this charming woman would be its own reward. "We don't detest you," he went on. "I don't know what you mean. At any rate, I speak for myself; I don't know anything about the others. Very likely, you detest them for the dull life they make you lead. Really, it would give me a sort of pleasure to hear you say so." Eugenia had been looking at the door on the other side of the room; now she slowly turned her eyes toward Robert Acton. "What can be the motive," she asked, "of a man like you--an honest man, a _galant homme_--in saying so base a thing as that?" "Does it sound very base?" asked Acton, candidly. "I suppose it does, and I thank you for telling me so. Of course, I don't mean it literally." The Baroness stood looking at him. "How do you mean it?" she asked. This question was difficult to answer, and Acton, feeling the least bit foolish, walked to the open window and looked out. He stood there, thinking a moment, and then he turned back. "You know that document that you were to send to Germany," he said. "You called it your 'renunciation.' Did you ever send it?" Madame M nster's eyes expanded; she looked very grave. "What a singular answer to my question!" "Oh, it isn't an answer," said Acton. "I have wished to ask you, many times. I thought it probable you would tell me yourself. The question, on my part, seems abrupt now; but it would be abrupt at any time." The Baroness was silent a moment; and then, "I think I have told you too much!" she said. This declaration appeared to Acton to have a certain force; he had indeed a sense of asking more of her than he offered her. He returned to the window, and watched, for a moment, a little star that twinkled through the lattice of the piazza. There were at any rate offers enough he could make; perhaps he had hitherto not been sufficiently explicit in doing so. "I wish you would ask something of me," he presently said. "Is there nothing I can do for you? If you can't stand this dull life any more, let me amuse you!" The Baroness had sunk once more into a chair, and she had taken up a fan which she held, with both hands, to her mouth. Over the top of the fan her eyes were fixed on him. "You are very strange tonight," she said, with a little laugh. "I will do anything in the world," he rejoined, standing in front of her. "Shouldn't you like to travel about and see something of the country? Won't you go to Niagara? You ought to see Niagara, you know." "With you, do you mean?" "I should be delighted to take you." "You alone?" Acton looked at her, smiling, and yet with a serious air. "Well, yes; we might go alone," he said. "If you were not what you are," she answered, "I should feel insulted." "How do you mean--what I am?" "If you were one of the gentlemen I have been used to all my life. If you were not a queer Bostonian." "If the gentlemen you have been used to have taught you to expect insults," said Acton, "I am glad I am what I am. You had much better come to Niagara." "If you wish to 'amuse' me," the Baroness declared, "you need go to no further expense. You amuse me very effectually." He sat down opposite to her; she still held her fan up to her face, with her eyes only showing above it. There was a moment's silence, and then he said, returning to his former question, "Have you sent that document to Germany?" Again there was a moment's silence. The expressive eyes of Madame M nster seemed, however, half to break it. "I will tell you--at Niagara!" she said. She had hardly spoken when the door at the further end of the room opened--the door upon which, some minutes previous, Eugenia had fixed her gaze. Clifford Wentworth stood there, blushing and looking rather awkward. The Baroness rose, quickly, and Acton, more slowly, did the same. Clifford gave him no greeting; he was looking at Eugenia. "Ah, you were here?" exclaimed Acton. "He was in Felix's studio," said Madame M nster. "He wanted to see his sketches." Clifford looked at Robert Acton, but said nothing; he only fanned himself with his hat. "You chose a bad moment," said Acton; "you hadn't much light." "I hadn't any!" said Clifford, laughing. "Your candle went out?" Eugenia asked. "You should have come back here and lighted it again." Clifford looked at her a moment. "So I have--come back. But I have left the candle!" Eugenia turned away. "You are very stupid, my poor boy. You had better go home." "Well," said Clifford, "good-night!" "Haven't you a word to throw to a man when he has safely returned from a dangerous journey?" Acton asked. "How do you do?" said Clifford. "I thought--I thought you were----" and he paused, looking at the Baroness again. "You thought I was at Newport, eh? So I was--this morning." "Good-night, clever child!" said Madame M nster, over her shoulder. Clifford stared at her--not at all like a clever child; and then, with one of his little facetious growls, took his departure. "What is the matter with him?" asked Acton, when he was gone. "He seemed rather in a muddle." Eugenia, who was near the window, glanced out, listening a moment. "The matter--the matter"--she answered. "But you don't say such things here." "If you mean that he had been drinking a little, you can say that." "He doesn't drink any more. I have cured him. And in return--he's in love with me." It was Acton's turn to stare. He instantly thought of his sister; but he said nothing about her. He began to laugh. "I don't wonder at his passion! But I wonder at his forsaking your society for that of your brother's paint-brushes." Eugenia was silent a little. "He had not been in the studio. I invented that at the moment." "Invented it? For what purpose?" "He has an idea of being romantic. He has adopted the habit of coming to see me at midnight--passing only through the orchard and through Felix's painting-room, which has a door opening that way. It seems to amuse him," added Eugenia, with a little laugh. Acton felt more surprise than he confessed to, for this was a new view of Clifford, whose irregularities had hitherto been quite without the romantic element. He tried to laugh again, but he felt rather too serious, and after a moment's hesitation his seriousness explained itself. "I hope you don't encourage him," he said. "He must not be inconstant to poor Lizzie." "To your sister?" "You know they are decidedly intimate," said Acton. "Ah," cried Eugenia, smiling, "has she--has she----" "I don't know," Acton interrupted, "what she has. But I always supposed that Clifford had a desire to make himself agreeable to her." "Ah, _par exemple!_" the Baroness went on. "The little monster! The next time he becomes sentimental I will him tell that he ought to be ashamed of himself." Acton was silent a moment. "You had better say nothing about it." "I had told him as much already, on general grounds," said the Baroness. "But in this country, you know, the relations of young people are so extraordinary that one is quite at sea. They are not engaged when you would quite say they ought to be. Take Charlotte Wentworth, for instance, and that young ecclesiastic. If I were her father I should insist upon his marrying her; but it appears to be thought there is no urgency. On the other hand, you suddenly learn that a boy of twenty and a little girl who is still with her governess--your sister has no governess? Well, then, who is never away from her mamma--a young couple, in short, between whom you have noticed nothing beyond an exchange of the childish pleasantries characteristic of their age, are on the point of setting up as man and wife." The Baroness spoke with a certain exaggerated volubility which was in contrast with the languid grace that had characterized her manner before Clifford made his appearance. It seemed to Acton that there was a spark of irritation in her eye--a note of irony (as when she spoke of Lizzie being never away from her mother) in her voice. If Madame M nster was irritated, Robert Acton was vaguely mystified; she began to move about the room again, and he looked at her without saying anything. Presently she took out her watch, and, glancing at it, declared that it was three o'clock in the morning and that he must go. "I have not been here an hour," he said, "and they are still sitting up at the other house. You can see the lights. Your brother has not come in." "Oh, at the other house," cried Eugenia, "they are terrible people! I don't know what they may do over there. I am a quiet little humdrum woman; I have rigid rules and I keep them. One of them is not to have visitors in the small hours--especially clever men like you. So good-night!" Decidedly, the Baroness was incisive; and though Acton bade her good-night and departed, he was still a good deal mystified. The next day Clifford Wentworth came to see Lizzie, and Acton, who was at home and saw him pass through the garden, took note of the circumstance. He had a natural desire to make it tally with Madame M nster's account of Clifford's disaffection; but his ingenuity, finding itself unequal to the task, resolved at last to ask help of the young man's candor. He waited till he saw him going away, and then he went out and overtook him in the grounds. "I wish very much you would answer me a question," Acton said. "What were you doing, last night, at Madame M nster's?" Clifford began to laugh and to blush, by no means like a young man with a romantic secret. "What did she tell you?" he asked. "That is exactly what I don't want to say." "Well, I want to tell you the same," said Clifford; "and unless I know it perhaps I can't." They had stopped in a garden path; Acton looked hard at his rosy young kinsman. "She said she couldn't fancy what had got into you; you appeared to have taken a violent dislike to her." Clifford stared, looking a little alarmed. "Oh, come," he growled, "you don't mean that!" "And that when--for common civility's sake--you came occasionally to the house you left her alone and spent your time in Felix's studio, under pretext of looking at his sketches." "Oh, come!" growled Clifford, again. "Did you ever know me to tell an untruth?" "Yes, lots of them!" said Clifford, seeing an opening, out of the discussion, for his sarcastic powers. "Well," he presently added, "I thought you were my father." "You knew someone was there?" "We heard you coming in." Acton meditated. "You had been with the Baroness, then?" "I was in the parlor. We heard your step outside. I thought it was my father." "And on that," asked Acton, "you ran away?" "She told me to go--to go out by the studio." Acton meditated more intensely; if there had been a chair at hand he would have sat down. "Why should she wish you not to meet your father?" "Well," said Clifford, "father doesn't like to see me there." Acton looked askance at his companion and forbore to make any comment upon this assertion. "Has he said so," he asked, "to the Baroness?" "Well, I hope not," said Clifford. "He hasn't said so--in so many words--to me. But I know it worries him; and I want to stop worrying him. The Baroness knows it, and she wants me to stop, too." "To stop coming to see her?" "I don't know about that; but to stop worrying father. Eugenia knows everything," Clifford added, with an air of knowingness of his own. "Ah," said Acton, interrogatively, "Eugenia knows everything?" "She knew it was not father coming in." "Then why did you go?" Clifford blushed and laughed afresh. "Well, I was afraid it was. And besides, she told me to go, at any rate." "Did she think it was I?" Acton asked. "She didn't say so." Again Robert Acton reflected. "But you didn't go," he presently said; "you came back." "I couldn't get out of the studio," Clifford rejoined. "The door was locked, and Felix has nailed some planks across the lower half of the confounded windows to make the light come in from above. So they were no use. I waited there a good while, and then, suddenly, I felt ashamed. I didn't want to be hiding away from my own father. I couldn't stand it any longer. I bolted out, and when I found it was you I was a little flurried. But Eugenia carried it off, didn't she?" Clifford added, in the tone of a young humorist whose perception had not been permanently clouded by the sense of his own discomfort. "Beautifully!" said Acton. "Especially," he continued, "when one remembers that you were very imprudent and that she must have been a good deal annoyed." "Oh," cried Clifford, with the indifference of a young man who feels that however he may have failed of felicity in behavior he is extremely just in his impressions, "Eugenia doesn't care for anything!" Acton hesitated a moment. "Thank you for telling me this," he said at last. And then, laying his hand on Clifford's shoulder, he added, "Tell me one thing more: are you by chance a little in love with the Baroness?" "No, sir!" said Clifford, almost shaking off his hand. CHAPTER X The first sunday that followed Robert Acton's return from Newport witnessed a change in the brilliant weather that had long prevailed. The rain began to fall and the day was cold and dreary. Mr. Wentworth and his daughters put on overshoes and went to church, and Felix Young, without overshoes, went also, holding an umbrella over Gertrude. It is to be feared that, in the whole observance, this was the privilege he most highly valued. The Baroness remained at home; she was in neither a cheerful nor a devotional mood. She had, however, never been, during her residence in the United States, what is called a regular attendant at divine service; and on this particular Sunday morning of which I began with speaking she stood at the window of her little drawing-room, watching the long arm of a rose tree that was attached to her piazza, but a portion of which had disengaged itself, sway to and fro, shake and gesticulate, against the dusky drizzle of the sky. Every now and then, in a gust of wind, the rose tree scattered a shower of water-drops against the window-pane; it appeared to have a kind of human movement--a menacing, warning intention. The room was very cold; Madame M nster put on a shawl and walked about. Then she determined to have some fire; and summoning her ancient negress, the contrast of whose polished ebony and whose crimson turban had been at first a source of satisfaction to her, she made arrangements for the production of a crackling flame. This old woman's name was Azarina. The Baroness had begun by thinking that there would be a savory wildness in her talk, and, for amusement, she had encouraged her to chatter. But Azarina was dry and prim; her conversation was anything but African; she reminded Eugenia of the tiresome old ladies she met in society. She knew, however, how to make a fire; so that after she had laid the logs, Eugenia, who was terribly bored, found a quarter of an hour's entertainment in sitting and watching them blaze and sputter. She had thought it very likely Robert Acton would come and see her; she had not met him since that infelicitous evening. But the morning waned without his coming; several times she thought she heard his step on the piazza; but it was only a window-shutter shaking in a rain-gust. The Baroness, since the beginning of that episode in her career of which a slight sketch has been attempted in these pages, had had many moments of irritation. But today her irritation had a peculiar keenness; it appeared to feed upon itself. It urged her to do something; but it suggested no particularly profitable line of action. If she could have done something at the moment, on the spot, she would have stepped upon a European steamer and turned her back, with a kind of rapture, upon that profoundly mortifying failure, her visit to her American relations. It is not exactly apparent why she should have termed this enterprise a failure, inasmuch as she had been treated with the highest distinction for which allowance had been made in American institutions. Her irritation came, at bottom, from the sense, which, always present, had suddenly grown acute, that the social soil on this big, vague continent was somehow not adapted for growing those plants whose fragrance she especially inclined to inhale and by which she liked to see herself surrounded--a species of vegetation for which she carried a collection of seedlings, as we may say, in her pocket. She found her chief happiness in the sense of exerting a certain power and making a certain impression; and now she felt the annoyance of a rather wearied swimmer who, on nearing shore, to land, finds a smooth straight wall of rock when he had counted upon a clean firm beach. Her power, in the American air, seemed to have lost its prehensile attributes; the smooth wall of rock was insurmountable. _"Surely je n'en suis pas l ,"_ she said to herself, "that I let it make me uncomfortable that a Mr. Robert Acton shouldn't honor me with a visit!" Yet she was vexed that he had not come; and she was vexed at her vexation. Her brother, at least, came in, stamping in the hall and shaking the wet from his coat. In a moment he entered the room, with a glow in his cheek and half-a-dozen rain-drops glistening on his moustache. "Ah, you have a fire," he said. _"Les beaux jours sont pass s,"_ replied the Baroness. "Never, never! They have only begun," Felix declared, planting himself before the hearth. He turned his back to the fire, placed his hands behind him, extended his legs and looked away through the window with an expression of face which seemed to denote the perception of rose-color even in the tints of a wet Sunday. His sister, from her chair, looked up at him, watching him; and what she saw in his face was not grateful to her present mood. She was puzzled by many things, but her brother's disposition was a frequent source of wonder to her. I say frequent and not constant, for there were long periods during which she gave her attention to other problems. Sometimes she had said to herself that his happy temper, his eternal gaiety, was an affectation, a _pose_; but she was vaguely conscious that during the present summer he had been a highly successful comedian. They had never yet had an explanation; she had not known the need of one. Felix was presumably following the bent of his disinterested genius, and she felt that she had no advice to give him that he would understand. With this, there was always a certain element of comfort about Felix--the assurance that he would not interfere. He was very delicate, this pure-minded Felix; in effect, he was her brother, and Madame M nster felt that there was a great propriety, every way, in that. It is true that Felix was delicate; he was not fond of explanations with his sister; this was one of the very few things in the world about which he was uncomfortable. But now he was not thinking of anything uncomfortable. "Dear brother," said Eugenia at last, "do stop making _les yeux doux_ at the rain." "With pleasure. I will make them at you!" answered Felix. "How much longer," asked Eugenia, in a moment, "do you propose to remain in this lovely spot?" Felix stared. "Do you want to go away--already?" "'Already' is delicious. I am not so happy as you." Felix dropped into a chair, looking at the fire. "The fact is I _am_ happy," he said in his light, clear tone. "And do you propose to spend your life in making love to Gertrude Wentworth?" "Yes!" said Felix, smiling sidewise at his sister. The Baroness returned his glance, much more gravely; and then, "Do you like her?" she asked. "Don't you?" Felix demanded. The Baroness was silent a moment. "I will answer you in the words of the gentleman who was asked if he liked music: _'Je ne la crains pas!'_" "She admires you immensely," said Felix. "I don't care for that. Other women should not admire one." "They should dislike you?" Again Madame M nster hesitated. "They should hate me! It's a measure of the time I have been losing here that they don't." "No time is lost in which one has been happy!" said Felix, with a bright sententiousness which may well have been a little irritating. "And in which," rejoined his sister, with a harsher laugh, "one has secured the affections of a young lady with a fortune!" Felix explained, very candidly and seriously. "I have secured Gertrude's affection, but I am by no means sure that I have secured her fortune. That may come--or it may not." "Ah, well, it _may!_ That's the great point." "It depends upon her father. He doesn't smile upon our union. You know he wants her to marry Mr. Brand." "I know nothing about it!" cried the Baroness. "Please to put on a log." Felix complied with her request and sat watching the quickening of the flame. Presently his sister added, "And you propose to elope with mademoiselle?" "By no means. I don't wish to do anything that's disagreeable to Mr. Wentworth. He has been far too kind to us." "But you must choose between pleasing yourself and pleasing him." "I want to please everyone!" exclaimed Felix, joyously. "I have a good conscience. I made up my mind at the outset that it was not my place to make love to Gertrude." "So, to simplify matters, she made love to you!" Felix looked at his sister with sudden gravity. "You say you are not afraid of her," he said. "But perhaps you ought to be--a little. She's a very clever person." "I begin to see it!" cried the Baroness. Her brother, making no rejoinder, leaned back in his chair, and there was a long silence. At last, with an altered accent, Madame M nster put another question. "You expect, at any rate, to marry?" "I shall be greatly disappointed if we don't." "A disappointment or two will do you good!" the Baroness declared. "And, afterwards, do you mean to turn American?" "It seems to me I am a very good American already. But we shall go to Europe. Gertrude wants extremely to see the world." "Ah, like me, when I came here!" said the Baroness, with a little laugh. "No, not like you," Felix rejoined, looking at his sister with a certain gentle seriousness. While he looked at her she rose from her chair, and he also got up. "Gertrude is not at all like you," he went on; "but in her own way she is almost as clever." He paused a moment; his soul was full of an agreeable feeling and of a lively disposition to express it. His sister, to his spiritual vision, was always like the lunar disk when only a part of it is lighted. The shadow on this bright surface seemed to him to expand and to contract; but whatever its proportions, he always appreciated the moonlight. He looked at the Baroness, and then he kissed her. "I am very much in | laugh | How many times the word 'laugh' appears in the text? | 3 |
us," said Acton. "That's what we must keep hold of!" He was too impatient to see Madame M nster again to wonder what Mr. Wentworth was talking about. Nevertheless, after he had passed out of the house and traversed the garden and the little piece of road that separated him from Eugenia's provisional residence, he stopped a moment outside. He stood in her little garden; the long window of her parlor was open, and he could see the white curtains, with the lamp-light shining through them, swaying softly to and fro in the warm night wind. There was a sort of excitement in the idea of seeing Madame M nster again; he became aware that his heart was beating rather faster than usual. It was this that made him stop, with a half-amused surprise. But in a moment he went along the piazza, and, approaching the open window, tapped upon its lintel with his stick. He could see the Baroness within; she was standing in the middle of the room. She came to the window and pulled aside the curtain; then she stood looking at him a moment. She was not smiling; she seemed serious. _"Mais entrez donc!"_ she said at last. Acton passed in across the window-sill; he wondered, for an instant, what was the matter with her. But the next moment she had begun to smile and had put out her hand. "Better late than never," she said. "It is very kind of you to come at this hour." "I have just returned from my journey," said Acton. "Ah, very kind, very kind," she repeated, looking about her where to sit. "I went first to the other house," Acton continued. "I expected to find you there." She had sunk into her usual chair; but she got up again, and began to move about the room. Acton had laid down his hat and stick; he was looking at her, conscious that there was in fact a great charm in seeing her again. "I don't know whether I ought to tell you to sit down," she said. "It is too late to begin a visit." "It's too early to end one," Acton declared; "and we needn't mind the beginning." She looked at him again, and, after a moment, dropped once more into her low chair, while he took a place near her. "We are in the middle, then?" she asked. "Was that where we were when you went away? No, I haven't been to the other house." "Not yesterday, nor the day before, eh?" "I don't know how many days it is." "You are tired of it," said Acton. She leaned back in her chair; her arms were folded. "That is a terrible accusation, but I have not the courage to defend myself." "I am not attacking you," said Acton. "I expected something of this kind." "It's a proof of extreme intelligence. I hope you enjoyed your journey." "Not at all," Acton declared. "I would much rather have been here with you." "Now you _are_ attacking me," said the Baroness. "You are contrasting my inconstancy with your own fidelity." "I confess I never get tired of people I like." "Ah, you are not a poor wicked foreign woman, with irritable nerves and a sophisticated mind!" "Something has happened to you since I went away," said Acton, changing his place. "Your going away--that is what has happened to me." "Do you mean to say that you have missed me?" he asked. "If I had meant to say it, it would not be worth your making a note of. I am very dishonest and my compliments are worthless." Acton was silent for some moments. "You have broken down," he said at last. Madame M nster left her chair, and began to move about. "Only for a moment. I shall pull myself together again." "You had better not take it too hard. If you are bored, you needn't be afraid to say so--to me at least." "You shouldn't say such things as that," the Baroness answered. "You should encourage me." "I admire your patience; that is encouraging." "You shouldn't even say that. When you talk of my patience you are disloyal to your own people. Patience implies suffering; and what have I had to suffer?" "Oh, not hunger, not unkindness, certainly," said Acton, laughing. "Nevertheless, we all admire your patience." "You all detest me!" cried the Baroness, with a sudden vehemence, turning her back toward him. "You make it hard," said Acton, getting up, "for a man to say something tender to you." This evening there was something particularly striking and touching about her; an unwonted softness and a look of suppressed emotion. He felt himself suddenly appreciating the fact that she had behaved very well. She had come to this quiet corner of the world under the weight of a cruel indignity, and she had been so gracefully, modestly thankful for the rest she found there. She had joined that simple circle over the way; she had mingled in its plain, provincial talk; she had shared its meagre and savorless pleasures. She had set herself a task, and she had rigidly performed it. She had conformed to the angular conditions of New England life, and she had had the tact and pluck to carry it off as if she liked them. Acton felt a more downright need than he had ever felt before to tell her that he admired her and that she struck him as a very superior woman. All along, hitherto, he had been on his guard with her; he had been cautious, observant, suspicious. But now a certain light tumult in his blood seemed to tell him that a finer degree of confidence in this charming woman would be its own reward. "We don't detest you," he went on. "I don't know what you mean. At any rate, I speak for myself; I don't know anything about the others. Very likely, you detest them for the dull life they make you lead. Really, it would give me a sort of pleasure to hear you say so." Eugenia had been looking at the door on the other side of the room; now she slowly turned her eyes toward Robert Acton. "What can be the motive," she asked, "of a man like you--an honest man, a _galant homme_--in saying so base a thing as that?" "Does it sound very base?" asked Acton, candidly. "I suppose it does, and I thank you for telling me so. Of course, I don't mean it literally." The Baroness stood looking at him. "How do you mean it?" she asked. This question was difficult to answer, and Acton, feeling the least bit foolish, walked to the open window and looked out. He stood there, thinking a moment, and then he turned back. "You know that document that you were to send to Germany," he said. "You called it your 'renunciation.' Did you ever send it?" Madame M nster's eyes expanded; she looked very grave. "What a singular answer to my question!" "Oh, it isn't an answer," said Acton. "I have wished to ask you, many times. I thought it probable you would tell me yourself. The question, on my part, seems abrupt now; but it would be abrupt at any time." The Baroness was silent a moment; and then, "I think I have told you too much!" she said. This declaration appeared to Acton to have a certain force; he had indeed a sense of asking more of her than he offered her. He returned to the window, and watched, for a moment, a little star that twinkled through the lattice of the piazza. There were at any rate offers enough he could make; perhaps he had hitherto not been sufficiently explicit in doing so. "I wish you would ask something of me," he presently said. "Is there nothing I can do for you? If you can't stand this dull life any more, let me amuse you!" The Baroness had sunk once more into a chair, and she had taken up a fan which she held, with both hands, to her mouth. Over the top of the fan her eyes were fixed on him. "You are very strange tonight," she said, with a little laugh. "I will do anything in the world," he rejoined, standing in front of her. "Shouldn't you like to travel about and see something of the country? Won't you go to Niagara? You ought to see Niagara, you know." "With you, do you mean?" "I should be delighted to take you." "You alone?" Acton looked at her, smiling, and yet with a serious air. "Well, yes; we might go alone," he said. "If you were not what you are," she answered, "I should feel insulted." "How do you mean--what I am?" "If you were one of the gentlemen I have been used to all my life. If you were not a queer Bostonian." "If the gentlemen you have been used to have taught you to expect insults," said Acton, "I am glad I am what I am. You had much better come to Niagara." "If you wish to 'amuse' me," the Baroness declared, "you need go to no further expense. You amuse me very effectually." He sat down opposite to her; she still held her fan up to her face, with her eyes only showing above it. There was a moment's silence, and then he said, returning to his former question, "Have you sent that document to Germany?" Again there was a moment's silence. The expressive eyes of Madame M nster seemed, however, half to break it. "I will tell you--at Niagara!" she said. She had hardly spoken when the door at the further end of the room opened--the door upon which, some minutes previous, Eugenia had fixed her gaze. Clifford Wentworth stood there, blushing and looking rather awkward. The Baroness rose, quickly, and Acton, more slowly, did the same. Clifford gave him no greeting; he was looking at Eugenia. "Ah, you were here?" exclaimed Acton. "He was in Felix's studio," said Madame M nster. "He wanted to see his sketches." Clifford looked at Robert Acton, but said nothing; he only fanned himself with his hat. "You chose a bad moment," said Acton; "you hadn't much light." "I hadn't any!" said Clifford, laughing. "Your candle went out?" Eugenia asked. "You should have come back here and lighted it again." Clifford looked at her a moment. "So I have--come back. But I have left the candle!" Eugenia turned away. "You are very stupid, my poor boy. You had better go home." "Well," said Clifford, "good-night!" "Haven't you a word to throw to a man when he has safely returned from a dangerous journey?" Acton asked. "How do you do?" said Clifford. "I thought--I thought you were----" and he paused, looking at the Baroness again. "You thought I was at Newport, eh? So I was--this morning." "Good-night, clever child!" said Madame M nster, over her shoulder. Clifford stared at her--not at all like a clever child; and then, with one of his little facetious growls, took his departure. "What is the matter with him?" asked Acton, when he was gone. "He seemed rather in a muddle." Eugenia, who was near the window, glanced out, listening a moment. "The matter--the matter"--she answered. "But you don't say such things here." "If you mean that he had been drinking a little, you can say that." "He doesn't drink any more. I have cured him. And in return--he's in love with me." It was Acton's turn to stare. He instantly thought of his sister; but he said nothing about her. He began to laugh. "I don't wonder at his passion! But I wonder at his forsaking your society for that of your brother's paint-brushes." Eugenia was silent a little. "He had not been in the studio. I invented that at the moment." "Invented it? For what purpose?" "He has an idea of being romantic. He has adopted the habit of coming to see me at midnight--passing only through the orchard and through Felix's painting-room, which has a door opening that way. It seems to amuse him," added Eugenia, with a little laugh. Acton felt more surprise than he confessed to, for this was a new view of Clifford, whose irregularities had hitherto been quite without the romantic element. He tried to laugh again, but he felt rather too serious, and after a moment's hesitation his seriousness explained itself. "I hope you don't encourage him," he said. "He must not be inconstant to poor Lizzie." "To your sister?" "You know they are decidedly intimate," said Acton. "Ah," cried Eugenia, smiling, "has she--has she----" "I don't know," Acton interrupted, "what she has. But I always supposed that Clifford had a desire to make himself agreeable to her." "Ah, _par exemple!_" the Baroness went on. "The little monster! The next time he becomes sentimental I will him tell that he ought to be ashamed of himself." Acton was silent a moment. "You had better say nothing about it." "I had told him as much already, on general grounds," said the Baroness. "But in this country, you know, the relations of young people are so extraordinary that one is quite at sea. They are not engaged when you would quite say they ought to be. Take Charlotte Wentworth, for instance, and that young ecclesiastic. If I were her father I should insist upon his marrying her; but it appears to be thought there is no urgency. On the other hand, you suddenly learn that a boy of twenty and a little girl who is still with her governess--your sister has no governess? Well, then, who is never away from her mamma--a young couple, in short, between whom you have noticed nothing beyond an exchange of the childish pleasantries characteristic of their age, are on the point of setting up as man and wife." The Baroness spoke with a certain exaggerated volubility which was in contrast with the languid grace that had characterized her manner before Clifford made his appearance. It seemed to Acton that there was a spark of irritation in her eye--a note of irony (as when she spoke of Lizzie being never away from her mother) in her voice. If Madame M nster was irritated, Robert Acton was vaguely mystified; she began to move about the room again, and he looked at her without saying anything. Presently she took out her watch, and, glancing at it, declared that it was three o'clock in the morning and that he must go. "I have not been here an hour," he said, "and they are still sitting up at the other house. You can see the lights. Your brother has not come in." "Oh, at the other house," cried Eugenia, "they are terrible people! I don't know what they may do over there. I am a quiet little humdrum woman; I have rigid rules and I keep them. One of them is not to have visitors in the small hours--especially clever men like you. So good-night!" Decidedly, the Baroness was incisive; and though Acton bade her good-night and departed, he was still a good deal mystified. The next day Clifford Wentworth came to see Lizzie, and Acton, who was at home and saw him pass through the garden, took note of the circumstance. He had a natural desire to make it tally with Madame M nster's account of Clifford's disaffection; but his ingenuity, finding itself unequal to the task, resolved at last to ask help of the young man's candor. He waited till he saw him going away, and then he went out and overtook him in the grounds. "I wish very much you would answer me a question," Acton said. "What were you doing, last night, at Madame M nster's?" Clifford began to laugh and to blush, by no means like a young man with a romantic secret. "What did she tell you?" he asked. "That is exactly what I don't want to say." "Well, I want to tell you the same," said Clifford; "and unless I know it perhaps I can't." They had stopped in a garden path; Acton looked hard at his rosy young kinsman. "She said she couldn't fancy what had got into you; you appeared to have taken a violent dislike to her." Clifford stared, looking a little alarmed. "Oh, come," he growled, "you don't mean that!" "And that when--for common civility's sake--you came occasionally to the house you left her alone and spent your time in Felix's studio, under pretext of looking at his sketches." "Oh, come!" growled Clifford, again. "Did you ever know me to tell an untruth?" "Yes, lots of them!" said Clifford, seeing an opening, out of the discussion, for his sarcastic powers. "Well," he presently added, "I thought you were my father." "You knew someone was there?" "We heard you coming in." Acton meditated. "You had been with the Baroness, then?" "I was in the parlor. We heard your step outside. I thought it was my father." "And on that," asked Acton, "you ran away?" "She told me to go--to go out by the studio." Acton meditated more intensely; if there had been a chair at hand he would have sat down. "Why should she wish you not to meet your father?" "Well," said Clifford, "father doesn't like to see me there." Acton looked askance at his companion and forbore to make any comment upon this assertion. "Has he said so," he asked, "to the Baroness?" "Well, I hope not," said Clifford. "He hasn't said so--in so many words--to me. But I know it worries him; and I want to stop worrying him. The Baroness knows it, and she wants me to stop, too." "To stop coming to see her?" "I don't know about that; but to stop worrying father. Eugenia knows everything," Clifford added, with an air of knowingness of his own. "Ah," said Acton, interrogatively, "Eugenia knows everything?" "She knew it was not father coming in." "Then why did you go?" Clifford blushed and laughed afresh. "Well, I was afraid it was. And besides, she told me to go, at any rate." "Did she think it was I?" Acton asked. "She didn't say so." Again Robert Acton reflected. "But you didn't go," he presently said; "you came back." "I couldn't get out of the studio," Clifford rejoined. "The door was locked, and Felix has nailed some planks across the lower half of the confounded windows to make the light come in from above. So they were no use. I waited there a good while, and then, suddenly, I felt ashamed. I didn't want to be hiding away from my own father. I couldn't stand it any longer. I bolted out, and when I found it was you I was a little flurried. But Eugenia carried it off, didn't she?" Clifford added, in the tone of a young humorist whose perception had not been permanently clouded by the sense of his own discomfort. "Beautifully!" said Acton. "Especially," he continued, "when one remembers that you were very imprudent and that she must have been a good deal annoyed." "Oh," cried Clifford, with the indifference of a young man who feels that however he may have failed of felicity in behavior he is extremely just in his impressions, "Eugenia doesn't care for anything!" Acton hesitated a moment. "Thank you for telling me this," he said at last. And then, laying his hand on Clifford's shoulder, he added, "Tell me one thing more: are you by chance a little in love with the Baroness?" "No, sir!" said Clifford, almost shaking off his hand. CHAPTER X The first sunday that followed Robert Acton's return from Newport witnessed a change in the brilliant weather that had long prevailed. The rain began to fall and the day was cold and dreary. Mr. Wentworth and his daughters put on overshoes and went to church, and Felix Young, without overshoes, went also, holding an umbrella over Gertrude. It is to be feared that, in the whole observance, this was the privilege he most highly valued. The Baroness remained at home; she was in neither a cheerful nor a devotional mood. She had, however, never been, during her residence in the United States, what is called a regular attendant at divine service; and on this particular Sunday morning of which I began with speaking she stood at the window of her little drawing-room, watching the long arm of a rose tree that was attached to her piazza, but a portion of which had disengaged itself, sway to and fro, shake and gesticulate, against the dusky drizzle of the sky. Every now and then, in a gust of wind, the rose tree scattered a shower of water-drops against the window-pane; it appeared to have a kind of human movement--a menacing, warning intention. The room was very cold; Madame M nster put on a shawl and walked about. Then she determined to have some fire; and summoning her ancient negress, the contrast of whose polished ebony and whose crimson turban had been at first a source of satisfaction to her, she made arrangements for the production of a crackling flame. This old woman's name was Azarina. The Baroness had begun by thinking that there would be a savory wildness in her talk, and, for amusement, she had encouraged her to chatter. But Azarina was dry and prim; her conversation was anything but African; she reminded Eugenia of the tiresome old ladies she met in society. She knew, however, how to make a fire; so that after she had laid the logs, Eugenia, who was terribly bored, found a quarter of an hour's entertainment in sitting and watching them blaze and sputter. She had thought it very likely Robert Acton would come and see her; she had not met him since that infelicitous evening. But the morning waned without his coming; several times she thought she heard his step on the piazza; but it was only a window-shutter shaking in a rain-gust. The Baroness, since the beginning of that episode in her career of which a slight sketch has been attempted in these pages, had had many moments of irritation. But today her irritation had a peculiar keenness; it appeared to feed upon itself. It urged her to do something; but it suggested no particularly profitable line of action. If she could have done something at the moment, on the spot, she would have stepped upon a European steamer and turned her back, with a kind of rapture, upon that profoundly mortifying failure, her visit to her American relations. It is not exactly apparent why she should have termed this enterprise a failure, inasmuch as she had been treated with the highest distinction for which allowance had been made in American institutions. Her irritation came, at bottom, from the sense, which, always present, had suddenly grown acute, that the social soil on this big, vague continent was somehow not adapted for growing those plants whose fragrance she especially inclined to inhale and by which she liked to see herself surrounded--a species of vegetation for which she carried a collection of seedlings, as we may say, in her pocket. She found her chief happiness in the sense of exerting a certain power and making a certain impression; and now she felt the annoyance of a rather wearied swimmer who, on nearing shore, to land, finds a smooth straight wall of rock when he had counted upon a clean firm beach. Her power, in the American air, seemed to have lost its prehensile attributes; the smooth wall of rock was insurmountable. _"Surely je n'en suis pas l ,"_ she said to herself, "that I let it make me uncomfortable that a Mr. Robert Acton shouldn't honor me with a visit!" Yet she was vexed that he had not come; and she was vexed at her vexation. Her brother, at least, came in, stamping in the hall and shaking the wet from his coat. In a moment he entered the room, with a glow in his cheek and half-a-dozen rain-drops glistening on his moustache. "Ah, you have a fire," he said. _"Les beaux jours sont pass s,"_ replied the Baroness. "Never, never! They have only begun," Felix declared, planting himself before the hearth. He turned his back to the fire, placed his hands behind him, extended his legs and looked away through the window with an expression of face which seemed to denote the perception of rose-color even in the tints of a wet Sunday. His sister, from her chair, looked up at him, watching him; and what she saw in his face was not grateful to her present mood. She was puzzled by many things, but her brother's disposition was a frequent source of wonder to her. I say frequent and not constant, for there were long periods during which she gave her attention to other problems. Sometimes she had said to herself that his happy temper, his eternal gaiety, was an affectation, a _pose_; but she was vaguely conscious that during the present summer he had been a highly successful comedian. They had never yet had an explanation; she had not known the need of one. Felix was presumably following the bent of his disinterested genius, and she felt that she had no advice to give him that he would understand. With this, there was always a certain element of comfort about Felix--the assurance that he would not interfere. He was very delicate, this pure-minded Felix; in effect, he was her brother, and Madame M nster felt that there was a great propriety, every way, in that. It is true that Felix was delicate; he was not fond of explanations with his sister; this was one of the very few things in the world about which he was uncomfortable. But now he was not thinking of anything uncomfortable. "Dear brother," said Eugenia at last, "do stop making _les yeux doux_ at the rain." "With pleasure. I will make them at you!" answered Felix. "How much longer," asked Eugenia, in a moment, "do you propose to remain in this lovely spot?" Felix stared. "Do you want to go away--already?" "'Already' is delicious. I am not so happy as you." Felix dropped into a chair, looking at the fire. "The fact is I _am_ happy," he said in his light, clear tone. "And do you propose to spend your life in making love to Gertrude Wentworth?" "Yes!" said Felix, smiling sidewise at his sister. The Baroness returned his glance, much more gravely; and then, "Do you like her?" she asked. "Don't you?" Felix demanded. The Baroness was silent a moment. "I will answer you in the words of the gentleman who was asked if he liked music: _'Je ne la crains pas!'_" "She admires you immensely," said Felix. "I don't care for that. Other women should not admire one." "They should dislike you?" Again Madame M nster hesitated. "They should hate me! It's a measure of the time I have been losing here that they don't." "No time is lost in which one has been happy!" said Felix, with a bright sententiousness which may well have been a little irritating. "And in which," rejoined his sister, with a harsher laugh, "one has secured the affections of a young lady with a fortune!" Felix explained, very candidly and seriously. "I have secured Gertrude's affection, but I am by no means sure that I have secured her fortune. That may come--or it may not." "Ah, well, it _may!_ That's the great point." "It depends upon her father. He doesn't smile upon our union. You know he wants her to marry Mr. Brand." "I know nothing about it!" cried the Baroness. "Please to put on a log." Felix complied with her request and sat watching the quickening of the flame. Presently his sister added, "And you propose to elope with mademoiselle?" "By no means. I don't wish to do anything that's disagreeable to Mr. Wentworth. He has been far too kind to us." "But you must choose between pleasing yourself and pleasing him." "I want to please everyone!" exclaimed Felix, joyously. "I have a good conscience. I made up my mind at the outset that it was not my place to make love to Gertrude." "So, to simplify matters, she made love to you!" Felix looked at his sister with sudden gravity. "You say you are not afraid of her," he said. "But perhaps you ought to be--a little. She's a very clever person." "I begin to see it!" cried the Baroness. Her brother, making no rejoinder, leaned back in his chair, and there was a long silence. At last, with an altered accent, Madame M nster put another question. "You expect, at any rate, to marry?" "I shall be greatly disappointed if we don't." "A disappointment or two will do you good!" the Baroness declared. "And, afterwards, do you mean to turn American?" "It seems to me I am a very good American already. But we shall go to Europe. Gertrude wants extremely to see the world." "Ah, like me, when I came here!" said the Baroness, with a little laugh. "No, not like you," Felix rejoined, looking at his sister with a certain gentle seriousness. While he looked at her she rose from her chair, and he also got up. "Gertrude is not at all like you," he went on; "but in her own way she is almost as clever." He paused a moment; his soul was full of an agreeable feeling and of a lively disposition to express it. His sister, to his spiritual vision, was always like the lunar disk when only a part of it is lighted. The shadow on this bright surface seemed to him to expand and to contract; but whatever its proportions, he always appreciated the moonlight. He looked at the Baroness, and then he kissed her. "I am very much in | passengers | How many times the word 'passengers' appears in the text? | 0 |
us," said Acton. "That's what we must keep hold of!" He was too impatient to see Madame M nster again to wonder what Mr. Wentworth was talking about. Nevertheless, after he had passed out of the house and traversed the garden and the little piece of road that separated him from Eugenia's provisional residence, he stopped a moment outside. He stood in her little garden; the long window of her parlor was open, and he could see the white curtains, with the lamp-light shining through them, swaying softly to and fro in the warm night wind. There was a sort of excitement in the idea of seeing Madame M nster again; he became aware that his heart was beating rather faster than usual. It was this that made him stop, with a half-amused surprise. But in a moment he went along the piazza, and, approaching the open window, tapped upon its lintel with his stick. He could see the Baroness within; she was standing in the middle of the room. She came to the window and pulled aside the curtain; then she stood looking at him a moment. She was not smiling; she seemed serious. _"Mais entrez donc!"_ she said at last. Acton passed in across the window-sill; he wondered, for an instant, what was the matter with her. But the next moment she had begun to smile and had put out her hand. "Better late than never," she said. "It is very kind of you to come at this hour." "I have just returned from my journey," said Acton. "Ah, very kind, very kind," she repeated, looking about her where to sit. "I went first to the other house," Acton continued. "I expected to find you there." She had sunk into her usual chair; but she got up again, and began to move about the room. Acton had laid down his hat and stick; he was looking at her, conscious that there was in fact a great charm in seeing her again. "I don't know whether I ought to tell you to sit down," she said. "It is too late to begin a visit." "It's too early to end one," Acton declared; "and we needn't mind the beginning." She looked at him again, and, after a moment, dropped once more into her low chair, while he took a place near her. "We are in the middle, then?" she asked. "Was that where we were when you went away? No, I haven't been to the other house." "Not yesterday, nor the day before, eh?" "I don't know how many days it is." "You are tired of it," said Acton. She leaned back in her chair; her arms were folded. "That is a terrible accusation, but I have not the courage to defend myself." "I am not attacking you," said Acton. "I expected something of this kind." "It's a proof of extreme intelligence. I hope you enjoyed your journey." "Not at all," Acton declared. "I would much rather have been here with you." "Now you _are_ attacking me," said the Baroness. "You are contrasting my inconstancy with your own fidelity." "I confess I never get tired of people I like." "Ah, you are not a poor wicked foreign woman, with irritable nerves and a sophisticated mind!" "Something has happened to you since I went away," said Acton, changing his place. "Your going away--that is what has happened to me." "Do you mean to say that you have missed me?" he asked. "If I had meant to say it, it would not be worth your making a note of. I am very dishonest and my compliments are worthless." Acton was silent for some moments. "You have broken down," he said at last. Madame M nster left her chair, and began to move about. "Only for a moment. I shall pull myself together again." "You had better not take it too hard. If you are bored, you needn't be afraid to say so--to me at least." "You shouldn't say such things as that," the Baroness answered. "You should encourage me." "I admire your patience; that is encouraging." "You shouldn't even say that. When you talk of my patience you are disloyal to your own people. Patience implies suffering; and what have I had to suffer?" "Oh, not hunger, not unkindness, certainly," said Acton, laughing. "Nevertheless, we all admire your patience." "You all detest me!" cried the Baroness, with a sudden vehemence, turning her back toward him. "You make it hard," said Acton, getting up, "for a man to say something tender to you." This evening there was something particularly striking and touching about her; an unwonted softness and a look of suppressed emotion. He felt himself suddenly appreciating the fact that she had behaved very well. She had come to this quiet corner of the world under the weight of a cruel indignity, and she had been so gracefully, modestly thankful for the rest she found there. She had joined that simple circle over the way; she had mingled in its plain, provincial talk; she had shared its meagre and savorless pleasures. She had set herself a task, and she had rigidly performed it. She had conformed to the angular conditions of New England life, and she had had the tact and pluck to carry it off as if she liked them. Acton felt a more downright need than he had ever felt before to tell her that he admired her and that she struck him as a very superior woman. All along, hitherto, he had been on his guard with her; he had been cautious, observant, suspicious. But now a certain light tumult in his blood seemed to tell him that a finer degree of confidence in this charming woman would be its own reward. "We don't detest you," he went on. "I don't know what you mean. At any rate, I speak for myself; I don't know anything about the others. Very likely, you detest them for the dull life they make you lead. Really, it would give me a sort of pleasure to hear you say so." Eugenia had been looking at the door on the other side of the room; now she slowly turned her eyes toward Robert Acton. "What can be the motive," she asked, "of a man like you--an honest man, a _galant homme_--in saying so base a thing as that?" "Does it sound very base?" asked Acton, candidly. "I suppose it does, and I thank you for telling me so. Of course, I don't mean it literally." The Baroness stood looking at him. "How do you mean it?" she asked. This question was difficult to answer, and Acton, feeling the least bit foolish, walked to the open window and looked out. He stood there, thinking a moment, and then he turned back. "You know that document that you were to send to Germany," he said. "You called it your 'renunciation.' Did you ever send it?" Madame M nster's eyes expanded; she looked very grave. "What a singular answer to my question!" "Oh, it isn't an answer," said Acton. "I have wished to ask you, many times. I thought it probable you would tell me yourself. The question, on my part, seems abrupt now; but it would be abrupt at any time." The Baroness was silent a moment; and then, "I think I have told you too much!" she said. This declaration appeared to Acton to have a certain force; he had indeed a sense of asking more of her than he offered her. He returned to the window, and watched, for a moment, a little star that twinkled through the lattice of the piazza. There were at any rate offers enough he could make; perhaps he had hitherto not been sufficiently explicit in doing so. "I wish you would ask something of me," he presently said. "Is there nothing I can do for you? If you can't stand this dull life any more, let me amuse you!" The Baroness had sunk once more into a chair, and she had taken up a fan which she held, with both hands, to her mouth. Over the top of the fan her eyes were fixed on him. "You are very strange tonight," she said, with a little laugh. "I will do anything in the world," he rejoined, standing in front of her. "Shouldn't you like to travel about and see something of the country? Won't you go to Niagara? You ought to see Niagara, you know." "With you, do you mean?" "I should be delighted to take you." "You alone?" Acton looked at her, smiling, and yet with a serious air. "Well, yes; we might go alone," he said. "If you were not what you are," she answered, "I should feel insulted." "How do you mean--what I am?" "If you were one of the gentlemen I have been used to all my life. If you were not a queer Bostonian." "If the gentlemen you have been used to have taught you to expect insults," said Acton, "I am glad I am what I am. You had much better come to Niagara." "If you wish to 'amuse' me," the Baroness declared, "you need go to no further expense. You amuse me very effectually." He sat down opposite to her; she still held her fan up to her face, with her eyes only showing above it. There was a moment's silence, and then he said, returning to his former question, "Have you sent that document to Germany?" Again there was a moment's silence. The expressive eyes of Madame M nster seemed, however, half to break it. "I will tell you--at Niagara!" she said. She had hardly spoken when the door at the further end of the room opened--the door upon which, some minutes previous, Eugenia had fixed her gaze. Clifford Wentworth stood there, blushing and looking rather awkward. The Baroness rose, quickly, and Acton, more slowly, did the same. Clifford gave him no greeting; he was looking at Eugenia. "Ah, you were here?" exclaimed Acton. "He was in Felix's studio," said Madame M nster. "He wanted to see his sketches." Clifford looked at Robert Acton, but said nothing; he only fanned himself with his hat. "You chose a bad moment," said Acton; "you hadn't much light." "I hadn't any!" said Clifford, laughing. "Your candle went out?" Eugenia asked. "You should have come back here and lighted it again." Clifford looked at her a moment. "So I have--come back. But I have left the candle!" Eugenia turned away. "You are very stupid, my poor boy. You had better go home." "Well," said Clifford, "good-night!" "Haven't you a word to throw to a man when he has safely returned from a dangerous journey?" Acton asked. "How do you do?" said Clifford. "I thought--I thought you were----" and he paused, looking at the Baroness again. "You thought I was at Newport, eh? So I was--this morning." "Good-night, clever child!" said Madame M nster, over her shoulder. Clifford stared at her--not at all like a clever child; and then, with one of his little facetious growls, took his departure. "What is the matter with him?" asked Acton, when he was gone. "He seemed rather in a muddle." Eugenia, who was near the window, glanced out, listening a moment. "The matter--the matter"--she answered. "But you don't say such things here." "If you mean that he had been drinking a little, you can say that." "He doesn't drink any more. I have cured him. And in return--he's in love with me." It was Acton's turn to stare. He instantly thought of his sister; but he said nothing about her. He began to laugh. "I don't wonder at his passion! But I wonder at his forsaking your society for that of your brother's paint-brushes." Eugenia was silent a little. "He had not been in the studio. I invented that at the moment." "Invented it? For what purpose?" "He has an idea of being romantic. He has adopted the habit of coming to see me at midnight--passing only through the orchard and through Felix's painting-room, which has a door opening that way. It seems to amuse him," added Eugenia, with a little laugh. Acton felt more surprise than he confessed to, for this was a new view of Clifford, whose irregularities had hitherto been quite without the romantic element. He tried to laugh again, but he felt rather too serious, and after a moment's hesitation his seriousness explained itself. "I hope you don't encourage him," he said. "He must not be inconstant to poor Lizzie." "To your sister?" "You know they are decidedly intimate," said Acton. "Ah," cried Eugenia, smiling, "has she--has she----" "I don't know," Acton interrupted, "what she has. But I always supposed that Clifford had a desire to make himself agreeable to her." "Ah, _par exemple!_" the Baroness went on. "The little monster! The next time he becomes sentimental I will him tell that he ought to be ashamed of himself." Acton was silent a moment. "You had better say nothing about it." "I had told him as much already, on general grounds," said the Baroness. "But in this country, you know, the relations of young people are so extraordinary that one is quite at sea. They are not engaged when you would quite say they ought to be. Take Charlotte Wentworth, for instance, and that young ecclesiastic. If I were her father I should insist upon his marrying her; but it appears to be thought there is no urgency. On the other hand, you suddenly learn that a boy of twenty and a little girl who is still with her governess--your sister has no governess? Well, then, who is never away from her mamma--a young couple, in short, between whom you have noticed nothing beyond an exchange of the childish pleasantries characteristic of their age, are on the point of setting up as man and wife." The Baroness spoke with a certain exaggerated volubility which was in contrast with the languid grace that had characterized her manner before Clifford made his appearance. It seemed to Acton that there was a spark of irritation in her eye--a note of irony (as when she spoke of Lizzie being never away from her mother) in her voice. If Madame M nster was irritated, Robert Acton was vaguely mystified; she began to move about the room again, and he looked at her without saying anything. Presently she took out her watch, and, glancing at it, declared that it was three o'clock in the morning and that he must go. "I have not been here an hour," he said, "and they are still sitting up at the other house. You can see the lights. Your brother has not come in." "Oh, at the other house," cried Eugenia, "they are terrible people! I don't know what they may do over there. I am a quiet little humdrum woman; I have rigid rules and I keep them. One of them is not to have visitors in the small hours--especially clever men like you. So good-night!" Decidedly, the Baroness was incisive; and though Acton bade her good-night and departed, he was still a good deal mystified. The next day Clifford Wentworth came to see Lizzie, and Acton, who was at home and saw him pass through the garden, took note of the circumstance. He had a natural desire to make it tally with Madame M nster's account of Clifford's disaffection; but his ingenuity, finding itself unequal to the task, resolved at last to ask help of the young man's candor. He waited till he saw him going away, and then he went out and overtook him in the grounds. "I wish very much you would answer me a question," Acton said. "What were you doing, last night, at Madame M nster's?" Clifford began to laugh and to blush, by no means like a young man with a romantic secret. "What did she tell you?" he asked. "That is exactly what I don't want to say." "Well, I want to tell you the same," said Clifford; "and unless I know it perhaps I can't." They had stopped in a garden path; Acton looked hard at his rosy young kinsman. "She said she couldn't fancy what had got into you; you appeared to have taken a violent dislike to her." Clifford stared, looking a little alarmed. "Oh, come," he growled, "you don't mean that!" "And that when--for common civility's sake--you came occasionally to the house you left her alone and spent your time in Felix's studio, under pretext of looking at his sketches." "Oh, come!" growled Clifford, again. "Did you ever know me to tell an untruth?" "Yes, lots of them!" said Clifford, seeing an opening, out of the discussion, for his sarcastic powers. "Well," he presently added, "I thought you were my father." "You knew someone was there?" "We heard you coming in." Acton meditated. "You had been with the Baroness, then?" "I was in the parlor. We heard your step outside. I thought it was my father." "And on that," asked Acton, "you ran away?" "She told me to go--to go out by the studio." Acton meditated more intensely; if there had been a chair at hand he would have sat down. "Why should she wish you not to meet your father?" "Well," said Clifford, "father doesn't like to see me there." Acton looked askance at his companion and forbore to make any comment upon this assertion. "Has he said so," he asked, "to the Baroness?" "Well, I hope not," said Clifford. "He hasn't said so--in so many words--to me. But I know it worries him; and I want to stop worrying him. The Baroness knows it, and she wants me to stop, too." "To stop coming to see her?" "I don't know about that; but to stop worrying father. Eugenia knows everything," Clifford added, with an air of knowingness of his own. "Ah," said Acton, interrogatively, "Eugenia knows everything?" "She knew it was not father coming in." "Then why did you go?" Clifford blushed and laughed afresh. "Well, I was afraid it was. And besides, she told me to go, at any rate." "Did she think it was I?" Acton asked. "She didn't say so." Again Robert Acton reflected. "But you didn't go," he presently said; "you came back." "I couldn't get out of the studio," Clifford rejoined. "The door was locked, and Felix has nailed some planks across the lower half of the confounded windows to make the light come in from above. So they were no use. I waited there a good while, and then, suddenly, I felt ashamed. I didn't want to be hiding away from my own father. I couldn't stand it any longer. I bolted out, and when I found it was you I was a little flurried. But Eugenia carried it off, didn't she?" Clifford added, in the tone of a young humorist whose perception had not been permanently clouded by the sense of his own discomfort. "Beautifully!" said Acton. "Especially," he continued, "when one remembers that you were very imprudent and that she must have been a good deal annoyed." "Oh," cried Clifford, with the indifference of a young man who feels that however he may have failed of felicity in behavior he is extremely just in his impressions, "Eugenia doesn't care for anything!" Acton hesitated a moment. "Thank you for telling me this," he said at last. And then, laying his hand on Clifford's shoulder, he added, "Tell me one thing more: are you by chance a little in love with the Baroness?" "No, sir!" said Clifford, almost shaking off his hand. CHAPTER X The first sunday that followed Robert Acton's return from Newport witnessed a change in the brilliant weather that had long prevailed. The rain began to fall and the day was cold and dreary. Mr. Wentworth and his daughters put on overshoes and went to church, and Felix Young, without overshoes, went also, holding an umbrella over Gertrude. It is to be feared that, in the whole observance, this was the privilege he most highly valued. The Baroness remained at home; she was in neither a cheerful nor a devotional mood. She had, however, never been, during her residence in the United States, what is called a regular attendant at divine service; and on this particular Sunday morning of which I began with speaking she stood at the window of her little drawing-room, watching the long arm of a rose tree that was attached to her piazza, but a portion of which had disengaged itself, sway to and fro, shake and gesticulate, against the dusky drizzle of the sky. Every now and then, in a gust of wind, the rose tree scattered a shower of water-drops against the window-pane; it appeared to have a kind of human movement--a menacing, warning intention. The room was very cold; Madame M nster put on a shawl and walked about. Then she determined to have some fire; and summoning her ancient negress, the contrast of whose polished ebony and whose crimson turban had been at first a source of satisfaction to her, she made arrangements for the production of a crackling flame. This old woman's name was Azarina. The Baroness had begun by thinking that there would be a savory wildness in her talk, and, for amusement, she had encouraged her to chatter. But Azarina was dry and prim; her conversation was anything but African; she reminded Eugenia of the tiresome old ladies she met in society. She knew, however, how to make a fire; so that after she had laid the logs, Eugenia, who was terribly bored, found a quarter of an hour's entertainment in sitting and watching them blaze and sputter. She had thought it very likely Robert Acton would come and see her; she had not met him since that infelicitous evening. But the morning waned without his coming; several times she thought she heard his step on the piazza; but it was only a window-shutter shaking in a rain-gust. The Baroness, since the beginning of that episode in her career of which a slight sketch has been attempted in these pages, had had many moments of irritation. But today her irritation had a peculiar keenness; it appeared to feed upon itself. It urged her to do something; but it suggested no particularly profitable line of action. If she could have done something at the moment, on the spot, she would have stepped upon a European steamer and turned her back, with a kind of rapture, upon that profoundly mortifying failure, her visit to her American relations. It is not exactly apparent why she should have termed this enterprise a failure, inasmuch as she had been treated with the highest distinction for which allowance had been made in American institutions. Her irritation came, at bottom, from the sense, which, always present, had suddenly grown acute, that the social soil on this big, vague continent was somehow not adapted for growing those plants whose fragrance she especially inclined to inhale and by which she liked to see herself surrounded--a species of vegetation for which she carried a collection of seedlings, as we may say, in her pocket. She found her chief happiness in the sense of exerting a certain power and making a certain impression; and now she felt the annoyance of a rather wearied swimmer who, on nearing shore, to land, finds a smooth straight wall of rock when he had counted upon a clean firm beach. Her power, in the American air, seemed to have lost its prehensile attributes; the smooth wall of rock was insurmountable. _"Surely je n'en suis pas l ,"_ she said to herself, "that I let it make me uncomfortable that a Mr. Robert Acton shouldn't honor me with a visit!" Yet she was vexed that he had not come; and she was vexed at her vexation. Her brother, at least, came in, stamping in the hall and shaking the wet from his coat. In a moment he entered the room, with a glow in his cheek and half-a-dozen rain-drops glistening on his moustache. "Ah, you have a fire," he said. _"Les beaux jours sont pass s,"_ replied the Baroness. "Never, never! They have only begun," Felix declared, planting himself before the hearth. He turned his back to the fire, placed his hands behind him, extended his legs and looked away through the window with an expression of face which seemed to denote the perception of rose-color even in the tints of a wet Sunday. His sister, from her chair, looked up at him, watching him; and what she saw in his face was not grateful to her present mood. She was puzzled by many things, but her brother's disposition was a frequent source of wonder to her. I say frequent and not constant, for there were long periods during which she gave her attention to other problems. Sometimes she had said to herself that his happy temper, his eternal gaiety, was an affectation, a _pose_; but she was vaguely conscious that during the present summer he had been a highly successful comedian. They had never yet had an explanation; she had not known the need of one. Felix was presumably following the bent of his disinterested genius, and she felt that she had no advice to give him that he would understand. With this, there was always a certain element of comfort about Felix--the assurance that he would not interfere. He was very delicate, this pure-minded Felix; in effect, he was her brother, and Madame M nster felt that there was a great propriety, every way, in that. It is true that Felix was delicate; he was not fond of explanations with his sister; this was one of the very few things in the world about which he was uncomfortable. But now he was not thinking of anything uncomfortable. "Dear brother," said Eugenia at last, "do stop making _les yeux doux_ at the rain." "With pleasure. I will make them at you!" answered Felix. "How much longer," asked Eugenia, in a moment, "do you propose to remain in this lovely spot?" Felix stared. "Do you want to go away--already?" "'Already' is delicious. I am not so happy as you." Felix dropped into a chair, looking at the fire. "The fact is I _am_ happy," he said in his light, clear tone. "And do you propose to spend your life in making love to Gertrude Wentworth?" "Yes!" said Felix, smiling sidewise at his sister. The Baroness returned his glance, much more gravely; and then, "Do you like her?" she asked. "Don't you?" Felix demanded. The Baroness was silent a moment. "I will answer you in the words of the gentleman who was asked if he liked music: _'Je ne la crains pas!'_" "She admires you immensely," said Felix. "I don't care for that. Other women should not admire one." "They should dislike you?" Again Madame M nster hesitated. "They should hate me! It's a measure of the time I have been losing here that they don't." "No time is lost in which one has been happy!" said Felix, with a bright sententiousness which may well have been a little irritating. "And in which," rejoined his sister, with a harsher laugh, "one has secured the affections of a young lady with a fortune!" Felix explained, very candidly and seriously. "I have secured Gertrude's affection, but I am by no means sure that I have secured her fortune. That may come--or it may not." "Ah, well, it _may!_ That's the great point." "It depends upon her father. He doesn't smile upon our union. You know he wants her to marry Mr. Brand." "I know nothing about it!" cried the Baroness. "Please to put on a log." Felix complied with her request and sat watching the quickening of the flame. Presently his sister added, "And you propose to elope with mademoiselle?" "By no means. I don't wish to do anything that's disagreeable to Mr. Wentworth. He has been far too kind to us." "But you must choose between pleasing yourself and pleasing him." "I want to please everyone!" exclaimed Felix, joyously. "I have a good conscience. I made up my mind at the outset that it was not my place to make love to Gertrude." "So, to simplify matters, she made love to you!" Felix looked at his sister with sudden gravity. "You say you are not afraid of her," he said. "But perhaps you ought to be--a little. She's a very clever person." "I begin to see it!" cried the Baroness. Her brother, making no rejoinder, leaned back in his chair, and there was a long silence. At last, with an altered accent, Madame M nster put another question. "You expect, at any rate, to marry?" "I shall be greatly disappointed if we don't." "A disappointment or two will do you good!" the Baroness declared. "And, afterwards, do you mean to turn American?" "It seems to me I am a very good American already. But we shall go to Europe. Gertrude wants extremely to see the world." "Ah, like me, when I came here!" said the Baroness, with a little laugh. "No, not like you," Felix rejoined, looking at his sister with a certain gentle seriousness. While he looked at her she rose from her chair, and he also got up. "Gertrude is not at all like you," he went on; "but in her own way she is almost as clever." He paused a moment; his soul was full of an agreeable feeling and of a lively disposition to express it. His sister, to his spiritual vision, was always like the lunar disk when only a part of it is lighted. The shadow on this bright surface seemed to him to expand and to contract; but whatever its proportions, he always appreciated the moonlight. He looked at the Baroness, and then he kissed her. "I am very much in | set | How many times the word 'set' appears in the text? | 1 |
us," said Acton. "That's what we must keep hold of!" He was too impatient to see Madame M nster again to wonder what Mr. Wentworth was talking about. Nevertheless, after he had passed out of the house and traversed the garden and the little piece of road that separated him from Eugenia's provisional residence, he stopped a moment outside. He stood in her little garden; the long window of her parlor was open, and he could see the white curtains, with the lamp-light shining through them, swaying softly to and fro in the warm night wind. There was a sort of excitement in the idea of seeing Madame M nster again; he became aware that his heart was beating rather faster than usual. It was this that made him stop, with a half-amused surprise. But in a moment he went along the piazza, and, approaching the open window, tapped upon its lintel with his stick. He could see the Baroness within; she was standing in the middle of the room. She came to the window and pulled aside the curtain; then she stood looking at him a moment. She was not smiling; she seemed serious. _"Mais entrez donc!"_ she said at last. Acton passed in across the window-sill; he wondered, for an instant, what was the matter with her. But the next moment she had begun to smile and had put out her hand. "Better late than never," she said. "It is very kind of you to come at this hour." "I have just returned from my journey," said Acton. "Ah, very kind, very kind," she repeated, looking about her where to sit. "I went first to the other house," Acton continued. "I expected to find you there." She had sunk into her usual chair; but she got up again, and began to move about the room. Acton had laid down his hat and stick; he was looking at her, conscious that there was in fact a great charm in seeing her again. "I don't know whether I ought to tell you to sit down," she said. "It is too late to begin a visit." "It's too early to end one," Acton declared; "and we needn't mind the beginning." She looked at him again, and, after a moment, dropped once more into her low chair, while he took a place near her. "We are in the middle, then?" she asked. "Was that where we were when you went away? No, I haven't been to the other house." "Not yesterday, nor the day before, eh?" "I don't know how many days it is." "You are tired of it," said Acton. She leaned back in her chair; her arms were folded. "That is a terrible accusation, but I have not the courage to defend myself." "I am not attacking you," said Acton. "I expected something of this kind." "It's a proof of extreme intelligence. I hope you enjoyed your journey." "Not at all," Acton declared. "I would much rather have been here with you." "Now you _are_ attacking me," said the Baroness. "You are contrasting my inconstancy with your own fidelity." "I confess I never get tired of people I like." "Ah, you are not a poor wicked foreign woman, with irritable nerves and a sophisticated mind!" "Something has happened to you since I went away," said Acton, changing his place. "Your going away--that is what has happened to me." "Do you mean to say that you have missed me?" he asked. "If I had meant to say it, it would not be worth your making a note of. I am very dishonest and my compliments are worthless." Acton was silent for some moments. "You have broken down," he said at last. Madame M nster left her chair, and began to move about. "Only for a moment. I shall pull myself together again." "You had better not take it too hard. If you are bored, you needn't be afraid to say so--to me at least." "You shouldn't say such things as that," the Baroness answered. "You should encourage me." "I admire your patience; that is encouraging." "You shouldn't even say that. When you talk of my patience you are disloyal to your own people. Patience implies suffering; and what have I had to suffer?" "Oh, not hunger, not unkindness, certainly," said Acton, laughing. "Nevertheless, we all admire your patience." "You all detest me!" cried the Baroness, with a sudden vehemence, turning her back toward him. "You make it hard," said Acton, getting up, "for a man to say something tender to you." This evening there was something particularly striking and touching about her; an unwonted softness and a look of suppressed emotion. He felt himself suddenly appreciating the fact that she had behaved very well. She had come to this quiet corner of the world under the weight of a cruel indignity, and she had been so gracefully, modestly thankful for the rest she found there. She had joined that simple circle over the way; she had mingled in its plain, provincial talk; she had shared its meagre and savorless pleasures. She had set herself a task, and she had rigidly performed it. She had conformed to the angular conditions of New England life, and she had had the tact and pluck to carry it off as if she liked them. Acton felt a more downright need than he had ever felt before to tell her that he admired her and that she struck him as a very superior woman. All along, hitherto, he had been on his guard with her; he had been cautious, observant, suspicious. But now a certain light tumult in his blood seemed to tell him that a finer degree of confidence in this charming woman would be its own reward. "We don't detest you," he went on. "I don't know what you mean. At any rate, I speak for myself; I don't know anything about the others. Very likely, you detest them for the dull life they make you lead. Really, it would give me a sort of pleasure to hear you say so." Eugenia had been looking at the door on the other side of the room; now she slowly turned her eyes toward Robert Acton. "What can be the motive," she asked, "of a man like you--an honest man, a _galant homme_--in saying so base a thing as that?" "Does it sound very base?" asked Acton, candidly. "I suppose it does, and I thank you for telling me so. Of course, I don't mean it literally." The Baroness stood looking at him. "How do you mean it?" she asked. This question was difficult to answer, and Acton, feeling the least bit foolish, walked to the open window and looked out. He stood there, thinking a moment, and then he turned back. "You know that document that you were to send to Germany," he said. "You called it your 'renunciation.' Did you ever send it?" Madame M nster's eyes expanded; she looked very grave. "What a singular answer to my question!" "Oh, it isn't an answer," said Acton. "I have wished to ask you, many times. I thought it probable you would tell me yourself. The question, on my part, seems abrupt now; but it would be abrupt at any time." The Baroness was silent a moment; and then, "I think I have told you too much!" she said. This declaration appeared to Acton to have a certain force; he had indeed a sense of asking more of her than he offered her. He returned to the window, and watched, for a moment, a little star that twinkled through the lattice of the piazza. There were at any rate offers enough he could make; perhaps he had hitherto not been sufficiently explicit in doing so. "I wish you would ask something of me," he presently said. "Is there nothing I can do for you? If you can't stand this dull life any more, let me amuse you!" The Baroness had sunk once more into a chair, and she had taken up a fan which she held, with both hands, to her mouth. Over the top of the fan her eyes were fixed on him. "You are very strange tonight," she said, with a little laugh. "I will do anything in the world," he rejoined, standing in front of her. "Shouldn't you like to travel about and see something of the country? Won't you go to Niagara? You ought to see Niagara, you know." "With you, do you mean?" "I should be delighted to take you." "You alone?" Acton looked at her, smiling, and yet with a serious air. "Well, yes; we might go alone," he said. "If you were not what you are," she answered, "I should feel insulted." "How do you mean--what I am?" "If you were one of the gentlemen I have been used to all my life. If you were not a queer Bostonian." "If the gentlemen you have been used to have taught you to expect insults," said Acton, "I am glad I am what I am. You had much better come to Niagara." "If you wish to 'amuse' me," the Baroness declared, "you need go to no further expense. You amuse me very effectually." He sat down opposite to her; she still held her fan up to her face, with her eyes only showing above it. There was a moment's silence, and then he said, returning to his former question, "Have you sent that document to Germany?" Again there was a moment's silence. The expressive eyes of Madame M nster seemed, however, half to break it. "I will tell you--at Niagara!" she said. She had hardly spoken when the door at the further end of the room opened--the door upon which, some minutes previous, Eugenia had fixed her gaze. Clifford Wentworth stood there, blushing and looking rather awkward. The Baroness rose, quickly, and Acton, more slowly, did the same. Clifford gave him no greeting; he was looking at Eugenia. "Ah, you were here?" exclaimed Acton. "He was in Felix's studio," said Madame M nster. "He wanted to see his sketches." Clifford looked at Robert Acton, but said nothing; he only fanned himself with his hat. "You chose a bad moment," said Acton; "you hadn't much light." "I hadn't any!" said Clifford, laughing. "Your candle went out?" Eugenia asked. "You should have come back here and lighted it again." Clifford looked at her a moment. "So I have--come back. But I have left the candle!" Eugenia turned away. "You are very stupid, my poor boy. You had better go home." "Well," said Clifford, "good-night!" "Haven't you a word to throw to a man when he has safely returned from a dangerous journey?" Acton asked. "How do you do?" said Clifford. "I thought--I thought you were----" and he paused, looking at the Baroness again. "You thought I was at Newport, eh? So I was--this morning." "Good-night, clever child!" said Madame M nster, over her shoulder. Clifford stared at her--not at all like a clever child; and then, with one of his little facetious growls, took his departure. "What is the matter with him?" asked Acton, when he was gone. "He seemed rather in a muddle." Eugenia, who was near the window, glanced out, listening a moment. "The matter--the matter"--she answered. "But you don't say such things here." "If you mean that he had been drinking a little, you can say that." "He doesn't drink any more. I have cured him. And in return--he's in love with me." It was Acton's turn to stare. He instantly thought of his sister; but he said nothing about her. He began to laugh. "I don't wonder at his passion! But I wonder at his forsaking your society for that of your brother's paint-brushes." Eugenia was silent a little. "He had not been in the studio. I invented that at the moment." "Invented it? For what purpose?" "He has an idea of being romantic. He has adopted the habit of coming to see me at midnight--passing only through the orchard and through Felix's painting-room, which has a door opening that way. It seems to amuse him," added Eugenia, with a little laugh. Acton felt more surprise than he confessed to, for this was a new view of Clifford, whose irregularities had hitherto been quite without the romantic element. He tried to laugh again, but he felt rather too serious, and after a moment's hesitation his seriousness explained itself. "I hope you don't encourage him," he said. "He must not be inconstant to poor Lizzie." "To your sister?" "You know they are decidedly intimate," said Acton. "Ah," cried Eugenia, smiling, "has she--has she----" "I don't know," Acton interrupted, "what she has. But I always supposed that Clifford had a desire to make himself agreeable to her." "Ah, _par exemple!_" the Baroness went on. "The little monster! The next time he becomes sentimental I will him tell that he ought to be ashamed of himself." Acton was silent a moment. "You had better say nothing about it." "I had told him as much already, on general grounds," said the Baroness. "But in this country, you know, the relations of young people are so extraordinary that one is quite at sea. They are not engaged when you would quite say they ought to be. Take Charlotte Wentworth, for instance, and that young ecclesiastic. If I were her father I should insist upon his marrying her; but it appears to be thought there is no urgency. On the other hand, you suddenly learn that a boy of twenty and a little girl who is still with her governess--your sister has no governess? Well, then, who is never away from her mamma--a young couple, in short, between whom you have noticed nothing beyond an exchange of the childish pleasantries characteristic of their age, are on the point of setting up as man and wife." The Baroness spoke with a certain exaggerated volubility which was in contrast with the languid grace that had characterized her manner before Clifford made his appearance. It seemed to Acton that there was a spark of irritation in her eye--a note of irony (as when she spoke of Lizzie being never away from her mother) in her voice. If Madame M nster was irritated, Robert Acton was vaguely mystified; she began to move about the room again, and he looked at her without saying anything. Presently she took out her watch, and, glancing at it, declared that it was three o'clock in the morning and that he must go. "I have not been here an hour," he said, "and they are still sitting up at the other house. You can see the lights. Your brother has not come in." "Oh, at the other house," cried Eugenia, "they are terrible people! I don't know what they may do over there. I am a quiet little humdrum woman; I have rigid rules and I keep them. One of them is not to have visitors in the small hours--especially clever men like you. So good-night!" Decidedly, the Baroness was incisive; and though Acton bade her good-night and departed, he was still a good deal mystified. The next day Clifford Wentworth came to see Lizzie, and Acton, who was at home and saw him pass through the garden, took note of the circumstance. He had a natural desire to make it tally with Madame M nster's account of Clifford's disaffection; but his ingenuity, finding itself unequal to the task, resolved at last to ask help of the young man's candor. He waited till he saw him going away, and then he went out and overtook him in the grounds. "I wish very much you would answer me a question," Acton said. "What were you doing, last night, at Madame M nster's?" Clifford began to laugh and to blush, by no means like a young man with a romantic secret. "What did she tell you?" he asked. "That is exactly what I don't want to say." "Well, I want to tell you the same," said Clifford; "and unless I know it perhaps I can't." They had stopped in a garden path; Acton looked hard at his rosy young kinsman. "She said she couldn't fancy what had got into you; you appeared to have taken a violent dislike to her." Clifford stared, looking a little alarmed. "Oh, come," he growled, "you don't mean that!" "And that when--for common civility's sake--you came occasionally to the house you left her alone and spent your time in Felix's studio, under pretext of looking at his sketches." "Oh, come!" growled Clifford, again. "Did you ever know me to tell an untruth?" "Yes, lots of them!" said Clifford, seeing an opening, out of the discussion, for his sarcastic powers. "Well," he presently added, "I thought you were my father." "You knew someone was there?" "We heard you coming in." Acton meditated. "You had been with the Baroness, then?" "I was in the parlor. We heard your step outside. I thought it was my father." "And on that," asked Acton, "you ran away?" "She told me to go--to go out by the studio." Acton meditated more intensely; if there had been a chair at hand he would have sat down. "Why should she wish you not to meet your father?" "Well," said Clifford, "father doesn't like to see me there." Acton looked askance at his companion and forbore to make any comment upon this assertion. "Has he said so," he asked, "to the Baroness?" "Well, I hope not," said Clifford. "He hasn't said so--in so many words--to me. But I know it worries him; and I want to stop worrying him. The Baroness knows it, and she wants me to stop, too." "To stop coming to see her?" "I don't know about that; but to stop worrying father. Eugenia knows everything," Clifford added, with an air of knowingness of his own. "Ah," said Acton, interrogatively, "Eugenia knows everything?" "She knew it was not father coming in." "Then why did you go?" Clifford blushed and laughed afresh. "Well, I was afraid it was. And besides, she told me to go, at any rate." "Did she think it was I?" Acton asked. "She didn't say so." Again Robert Acton reflected. "But you didn't go," he presently said; "you came back." "I couldn't get out of the studio," Clifford rejoined. "The door was locked, and Felix has nailed some planks across the lower half of the confounded windows to make the light come in from above. So they were no use. I waited there a good while, and then, suddenly, I felt ashamed. I didn't want to be hiding away from my own father. I couldn't stand it any longer. I bolted out, and when I found it was you I was a little flurried. But Eugenia carried it off, didn't she?" Clifford added, in the tone of a young humorist whose perception had not been permanently clouded by the sense of his own discomfort. "Beautifully!" said Acton. "Especially," he continued, "when one remembers that you were very imprudent and that she must have been a good deal annoyed." "Oh," cried Clifford, with the indifference of a young man who feels that however he may have failed of felicity in behavior he is extremely just in his impressions, "Eugenia doesn't care for anything!" Acton hesitated a moment. "Thank you for telling me this," he said at last. And then, laying his hand on Clifford's shoulder, he added, "Tell me one thing more: are you by chance a little in love with the Baroness?" "No, sir!" said Clifford, almost shaking off his hand. CHAPTER X The first sunday that followed Robert Acton's return from Newport witnessed a change in the brilliant weather that had long prevailed. The rain began to fall and the day was cold and dreary. Mr. Wentworth and his daughters put on overshoes and went to church, and Felix Young, without overshoes, went also, holding an umbrella over Gertrude. It is to be feared that, in the whole observance, this was the privilege he most highly valued. The Baroness remained at home; she was in neither a cheerful nor a devotional mood. She had, however, never been, during her residence in the United States, what is called a regular attendant at divine service; and on this particular Sunday morning of which I began with speaking she stood at the window of her little drawing-room, watching the long arm of a rose tree that was attached to her piazza, but a portion of which had disengaged itself, sway to and fro, shake and gesticulate, against the dusky drizzle of the sky. Every now and then, in a gust of wind, the rose tree scattered a shower of water-drops against the window-pane; it appeared to have a kind of human movement--a menacing, warning intention. The room was very cold; Madame M nster put on a shawl and walked about. Then she determined to have some fire; and summoning her ancient negress, the contrast of whose polished ebony and whose crimson turban had been at first a source of satisfaction to her, she made arrangements for the production of a crackling flame. This old woman's name was Azarina. The Baroness had begun by thinking that there would be a savory wildness in her talk, and, for amusement, she had encouraged her to chatter. But Azarina was dry and prim; her conversation was anything but African; she reminded Eugenia of the tiresome old ladies she met in society. She knew, however, how to make a fire; so that after she had laid the logs, Eugenia, who was terribly bored, found a quarter of an hour's entertainment in sitting and watching them blaze and sputter. She had thought it very likely Robert Acton would come and see her; she had not met him since that infelicitous evening. But the morning waned without his coming; several times she thought she heard his step on the piazza; but it was only a window-shutter shaking in a rain-gust. The Baroness, since the beginning of that episode in her career of which a slight sketch has been attempted in these pages, had had many moments of irritation. But today her irritation had a peculiar keenness; it appeared to feed upon itself. It urged her to do something; but it suggested no particularly profitable line of action. If she could have done something at the moment, on the spot, she would have stepped upon a European steamer and turned her back, with a kind of rapture, upon that profoundly mortifying failure, her visit to her American relations. It is not exactly apparent why she should have termed this enterprise a failure, inasmuch as she had been treated with the highest distinction for which allowance had been made in American institutions. Her irritation came, at bottom, from the sense, which, always present, had suddenly grown acute, that the social soil on this big, vague continent was somehow not adapted for growing those plants whose fragrance she especially inclined to inhale and by which she liked to see herself surrounded--a species of vegetation for which she carried a collection of seedlings, as we may say, in her pocket. She found her chief happiness in the sense of exerting a certain power and making a certain impression; and now she felt the annoyance of a rather wearied swimmer who, on nearing shore, to land, finds a smooth straight wall of rock when he had counted upon a clean firm beach. Her power, in the American air, seemed to have lost its prehensile attributes; the smooth wall of rock was insurmountable. _"Surely je n'en suis pas l ,"_ she said to herself, "that I let it make me uncomfortable that a Mr. Robert Acton shouldn't honor me with a visit!" Yet she was vexed that he had not come; and she was vexed at her vexation. Her brother, at least, came in, stamping in the hall and shaking the wet from his coat. In a moment he entered the room, with a glow in his cheek and half-a-dozen rain-drops glistening on his moustache. "Ah, you have a fire," he said. _"Les beaux jours sont pass s,"_ replied the Baroness. "Never, never! They have only begun," Felix declared, planting himself before the hearth. He turned his back to the fire, placed his hands behind him, extended his legs and looked away through the window with an expression of face which seemed to denote the perception of rose-color even in the tints of a wet Sunday. His sister, from her chair, looked up at him, watching him; and what she saw in his face was not grateful to her present mood. She was puzzled by many things, but her brother's disposition was a frequent source of wonder to her. I say frequent and not constant, for there were long periods during which she gave her attention to other problems. Sometimes she had said to herself that his happy temper, his eternal gaiety, was an affectation, a _pose_; but she was vaguely conscious that during the present summer he had been a highly successful comedian. They had never yet had an explanation; she had not known the need of one. Felix was presumably following the bent of his disinterested genius, and she felt that she had no advice to give him that he would understand. With this, there was always a certain element of comfort about Felix--the assurance that he would not interfere. He was very delicate, this pure-minded Felix; in effect, he was her brother, and Madame M nster felt that there was a great propriety, every way, in that. It is true that Felix was delicate; he was not fond of explanations with his sister; this was one of the very few things in the world about which he was uncomfortable. But now he was not thinking of anything uncomfortable. "Dear brother," said Eugenia at last, "do stop making _les yeux doux_ at the rain." "With pleasure. I will make them at you!" answered Felix. "How much longer," asked Eugenia, in a moment, "do you propose to remain in this lovely spot?" Felix stared. "Do you want to go away--already?" "'Already' is delicious. I am not so happy as you." Felix dropped into a chair, looking at the fire. "The fact is I _am_ happy," he said in his light, clear tone. "And do you propose to spend your life in making love to Gertrude Wentworth?" "Yes!" said Felix, smiling sidewise at his sister. The Baroness returned his glance, much more gravely; and then, "Do you like her?" she asked. "Don't you?" Felix demanded. The Baroness was silent a moment. "I will answer you in the words of the gentleman who was asked if he liked music: _'Je ne la crains pas!'_" "She admires you immensely," said Felix. "I don't care for that. Other women should not admire one." "They should dislike you?" Again Madame M nster hesitated. "They should hate me! It's a measure of the time I have been losing here that they don't." "No time is lost in which one has been happy!" said Felix, with a bright sententiousness which may well have been a little irritating. "And in which," rejoined his sister, with a harsher laugh, "one has secured the affections of a young lady with a fortune!" Felix explained, very candidly and seriously. "I have secured Gertrude's affection, but I am by no means sure that I have secured her fortune. That may come--or it may not." "Ah, well, it _may!_ That's the great point." "It depends upon her father. He doesn't smile upon our union. You know he wants her to marry Mr. Brand." "I know nothing about it!" cried the Baroness. "Please to put on a log." Felix complied with her request and sat watching the quickening of the flame. Presently his sister added, "And you propose to elope with mademoiselle?" "By no means. I don't wish to do anything that's disagreeable to Mr. Wentworth. He has been far too kind to us." "But you must choose between pleasing yourself and pleasing him." "I want to please everyone!" exclaimed Felix, joyously. "I have a good conscience. I made up my mind at the outset that it was not my place to make love to Gertrude." "So, to simplify matters, she made love to you!" Felix looked at his sister with sudden gravity. "You say you are not afraid of her," he said. "But perhaps you ought to be--a little. She's a very clever person." "I begin to see it!" cried the Baroness. Her brother, making no rejoinder, leaned back in his chair, and there was a long silence. At last, with an altered accent, Madame M nster put another question. "You expect, at any rate, to marry?" "I shall be greatly disappointed if we don't." "A disappointment or two will do you good!" the Baroness declared. "And, afterwards, do you mean to turn American?" "It seems to me I am a very good American already. But we shall go to Europe. Gertrude wants extremely to see the world." "Ah, like me, when I came here!" said the Baroness, with a little laugh. "No, not like you," Felix rejoined, looking at his sister with a certain gentle seriousness. While he looked at her she rose from her chair, and he also got up. "Gertrude is not at all like you," he went on; "but in her own way she is almost as clever." He paused a moment; his soul was full of an agreeable feeling and of a lively disposition to express it. His sister, to his spiritual vision, was always like the lunar disk when only a part of it is lighted. The shadow on this bright surface seemed to him to expand and to contract; but whatever its proportions, he always appreciated the moonlight. He looked at the Baroness, and then he kissed her. "I am very much in | characterized | How many times the word 'characterized' appears in the text? | 1 |
us," said Acton. "That's what we must keep hold of!" He was too impatient to see Madame M nster again to wonder what Mr. Wentworth was talking about. Nevertheless, after he had passed out of the house and traversed the garden and the little piece of road that separated him from Eugenia's provisional residence, he stopped a moment outside. He stood in her little garden; the long window of her parlor was open, and he could see the white curtains, with the lamp-light shining through them, swaying softly to and fro in the warm night wind. There was a sort of excitement in the idea of seeing Madame M nster again; he became aware that his heart was beating rather faster than usual. It was this that made him stop, with a half-amused surprise. But in a moment he went along the piazza, and, approaching the open window, tapped upon its lintel with his stick. He could see the Baroness within; she was standing in the middle of the room. She came to the window and pulled aside the curtain; then she stood looking at him a moment. She was not smiling; she seemed serious. _"Mais entrez donc!"_ she said at last. Acton passed in across the window-sill; he wondered, for an instant, what was the matter with her. But the next moment she had begun to smile and had put out her hand. "Better late than never," she said. "It is very kind of you to come at this hour." "I have just returned from my journey," said Acton. "Ah, very kind, very kind," she repeated, looking about her where to sit. "I went first to the other house," Acton continued. "I expected to find you there." She had sunk into her usual chair; but she got up again, and began to move about the room. Acton had laid down his hat and stick; he was looking at her, conscious that there was in fact a great charm in seeing her again. "I don't know whether I ought to tell you to sit down," she said. "It is too late to begin a visit." "It's too early to end one," Acton declared; "and we needn't mind the beginning." She looked at him again, and, after a moment, dropped once more into her low chair, while he took a place near her. "We are in the middle, then?" she asked. "Was that where we were when you went away? No, I haven't been to the other house." "Not yesterday, nor the day before, eh?" "I don't know how many days it is." "You are tired of it," said Acton. She leaned back in her chair; her arms were folded. "That is a terrible accusation, but I have not the courage to defend myself." "I am not attacking you," said Acton. "I expected something of this kind." "It's a proof of extreme intelligence. I hope you enjoyed your journey." "Not at all," Acton declared. "I would much rather have been here with you." "Now you _are_ attacking me," said the Baroness. "You are contrasting my inconstancy with your own fidelity." "I confess I never get tired of people I like." "Ah, you are not a poor wicked foreign woman, with irritable nerves and a sophisticated mind!" "Something has happened to you since I went away," said Acton, changing his place. "Your going away--that is what has happened to me." "Do you mean to say that you have missed me?" he asked. "If I had meant to say it, it would not be worth your making a note of. I am very dishonest and my compliments are worthless." Acton was silent for some moments. "You have broken down," he said at last. Madame M nster left her chair, and began to move about. "Only for a moment. I shall pull myself together again." "You had better not take it too hard. If you are bored, you needn't be afraid to say so--to me at least." "You shouldn't say such things as that," the Baroness answered. "You should encourage me." "I admire your patience; that is encouraging." "You shouldn't even say that. When you talk of my patience you are disloyal to your own people. Patience implies suffering; and what have I had to suffer?" "Oh, not hunger, not unkindness, certainly," said Acton, laughing. "Nevertheless, we all admire your patience." "You all detest me!" cried the Baroness, with a sudden vehemence, turning her back toward him. "You make it hard," said Acton, getting up, "for a man to say something tender to you." This evening there was something particularly striking and touching about her; an unwonted softness and a look of suppressed emotion. He felt himself suddenly appreciating the fact that she had behaved very well. She had come to this quiet corner of the world under the weight of a cruel indignity, and she had been so gracefully, modestly thankful for the rest she found there. She had joined that simple circle over the way; she had mingled in its plain, provincial talk; she had shared its meagre and savorless pleasures. She had set herself a task, and she had rigidly performed it. She had conformed to the angular conditions of New England life, and she had had the tact and pluck to carry it off as if she liked them. Acton felt a more downright need than he had ever felt before to tell her that he admired her and that she struck him as a very superior woman. All along, hitherto, he had been on his guard with her; he had been cautious, observant, suspicious. But now a certain light tumult in his blood seemed to tell him that a finer degree of confidence in this charming woman would be its own reward. "We don't detest you," he went on. "I don't know what you mean. At any rate, I speak for myself; I don't know anything about the others. Very likely, you detest them for the dull life they make you lead. Really, it would give me a sort of pleasure to hear you say so." Eugenia had been looking at the door on the other side of the room; now she slowly turned her eyes toward Robert Acton. "What can be the motive," she asked, "of a man like you--an honest man, a _galant homme_--in saying so base a thing as that?" "Does it sound very base?" asked Acton, candidly. "I suppose it does, and I thank you for telling me so. Of course, I don't mean it literally." The Baroness stood looking at him. "How do you mean it?" she asked. This question was difficult to answer, and Acton, feeling the least bit foolish, walked to the open window and looked out. He stood there, thinking a moment, and then he turned back. "You know that document that you were to send to Germany," he said. "You called it your 'renunciation.' Did you ever send it?" Madame M nster's eyes expanded; she looked very grave. "What a singular answer to my question!" "Oh, it isn't an answer," said Acton. "I have wished to ask you, many times. I thought it probable you would tell me yourself. The question, on my part, seems abrupt now; but it would be abrupt at any time." The Baroness was silent a moment; and then, "I think I have told you too much!" she said. This declaration appeared to Acton to have a certain force; he had indeed a sense of asking more of her than he offered her. He returned to the window, and watched, for a moment, a little star that twinkled through the lattice of the piazza. There were at any rate offers enough he could make; perhaps he had hitherto not been sufficiently explicit in doing so. "I wish you would ask something of me," he presently said. "Is there nothing I can do for you? If you can't stand this dull life any more, let me amuse you!" The Baroness had sunk once more into a chair, and she had taken up a fan which she held, with both hands, to her mouth. Over the top of the fan her eyes were fixed on him. "You are very strange tonight," she said, with a little laugh. "I will do anything in the world," he rejoined, standing in front of her. "Shouldn't you like to travel about and see something of the country? Won't you go to Niagara? You ought to see Niagara, you know." "With you, do you mean?" "I should be delighted to take you." "You alone?" Acton looked at her, smiling, and yet with a serious air. "Well, yes; we might go alone," he said. "If you were not what you are," she answered, "I should feel insulted." "How do you mean--what I am?" "If you were one of the gentlemen I have been used to all my life. If you were not a queer Bostonian." "If the gentlemen you have been used to have taught you to expect insults," said Acton, "I am glad I am what I am. You had much better come to Niagara." "If you wish to 'amuse' me," the Baroness declared, "you need go to no further expense. You amuse me very effectually." He sat down opposite to her; she still held her fan up to her face, with her eyes only showing above it. There was a moment's silence, and then he said, returning to his former question, "Have you sent that document to Germany?" Again there was a moment's silence. The expressive eyes of Madame M nster seemed, however, half to break it. "I will tell you--at Niagara!" she said. She had hardly spoken when the door at the further end of the room opened--the door upon which, some minutes previous, Eugenia had fixed her gaze. Clifford Wentworth stood there, blushing and looking rather awkward. The Baroness rose, quickly, and Acton, more slowly, did the same. Clifford gave him no greeting; he was looking at Eugenia. "Ah, you were here?" exclaimed Acton. "He was in Felix's studio," said Madame M nster. "He wanted to see his sketches." Clifford looked at Robert Acton, but said nothing; he only fanned himself with his hat. "You chose a bad moment," said Acton; "you hadn't much light." "I hadn't any!" said Clifford, laughing. "Your candle went out?" Eugenia asked. "You should have come back here and lighted it again." Clifford looked at her a moment. "So I have--come back. But I have left the candle!" Eugenia turned away. "You are very stupid, my poor boy. You had better go home." "Well," said Clifford, "good-night!" "Haven't you a word to throw to a man when he has safely returned from a dangerous journey?" Acton asked. "How do you do?" said Clifford. "I thought--I thought you were----" and he paused, looking at the Baroness again. "You thought I was at Newport, eh? So I was--this morning." "Good-night, clever child!" said Madame M nster, over her shoulder. Clifford stared at her--not at all like a clever child; and then, with one of his little facetious growls, took his departure. "What is the matter with him?" asked Acton, when he was gone. "He seemed rather in a muddle." Eugenia, who was near the window, glanced out, listening a moment. "The matter--the matter"--she answered. "But you don't say such things here." "If you mean that he had been drinking a little, you can say that." "He doesn't drink any more. I have cured him. And in return--he's in love with me." It was Acton's turn to stare. He instantly thought of his sister; but he said nothing about her. He began to laugh. "I don't wonder at his passion! But I wonder at his forsaking your society for that of your brother's paint-brushes." Eugenia was silent a little. "He had not been in the studio. I invented that at the moment." "Invented it? For what purpose?" "He has an idea of being romantic. He has adopted the habit of coming to see me at midnight--passing only through the orchard and through Felix's painting-room, which has a door opening that way. It seems to amuse him," added Eugenia, with a little laugh. Acton felt more surprise than he confessed to, for this was a new view of Clifford, whose irregularities had hitherto been quite without the romantic element. He tried to laugh again, but he felt rather too serious, and after a moment's hesitation his seriousness explained itself. "I hope you don't encourage him," he said. "He must not be inconstant to poor Lizzie." "To your sister?" "You know they are decidedly intimate," said Acton. "Ah," cried Eugenia, smiling, "has she--has she----" "I don't know," Acton interrupted, "what she has. But I always supposed that Clifford had a desire to make himself agreeable to her." "Ah, _par exemple!_" the Baroness went on. "The little monster! The next time he becomes sentimental I will him tell that he ought to be ashamed of himself." Acton was silent a moment. "You had better say nothing about it." "I had told him as much already, on general grounds," said the Baroness. "But in this country, you know, the relations of young people are so extraordinary that one is quite at sea. They are not engaged when you would quite say they ought to be. Take Charlotte Wentworth, for instance, and that young ecclesiastic. If I were her father I should insist upon his marrying her; but it appears to be thought there is no urgency. On the other hand, you suddenly learn that a boy of twenty and a little girl who is still with her governess--your sister has no governess? Well, then, who is never away from her mamma--a young couple, in short, between whom you have noticed nothing beyond an exchange of the childish pleasantries characteristic of their age, are on the point of setting up as man and wife." The Baroness spoke with a certain exaggerated volubility which was in contrast with the languid grace that had characterized her manner before Clifford made his appearance. It seemed to Acton that there was a spark of irritation in her eye--a note of irony (as when she spoke of Lizzie being never away from her mother) in her voice. If Madame M nster was irritated, Robert Acton was vaguely mystified; she began to move about the room again, and he looked at her without saying anything. Presently she took out her watch, and, glancing at it, declared that it was three o'clock in the morning and that he must go. "I have not been here an hour," he said, "and they are still sitting up at the other house. You can see the lights. Your brother has not come in." "Oh, at the other house," cried Eugenia, "they are terrible people! I don't know what they may do over there. I am a quiet little humdrum woman; I have rigid rules and I keep them. One of them is not to have visitors in the small hours--especially clever men like you. So good-night!" Decidedly, the Baroness was incisive; and though Acton bade her good-night and departed, he was still a good deal mystified. The next day Clifford Wentworth came to see Lizzie, and Acton, who was at home and saw him pass through the garden, took note of the circumstance. He had a natural desire to make it tally with Madame M nster's account of Clifford's disaffection; but his ingenuity, finding itself unequal to the task, resolved at last to ask help of the young man's candor. He waited till he saw him going away, and then he went out and overtook him in the grounds. "I wish very much you would answer me a question," Acton said. "What were you doing, last night, at Madame M nster's?" Clifford began to laugh and to blush, by no means like a young man with a romantic secret. "What did she tell you?" he asked. "That is exactly what I don't want to say." "Well, I want to tell you the same," said Clifford; "and unless I know it perhaps I can't." They had stopped in a garden path; Acton looked hard at his rosy young kinsman. "She said she couldn't fancy what had got into you; you appeared to have taken a violent dislike to her." Clifford stared, looking a little alarmed. "Oh, come," he growled, "you don't mean that!" "And that when--for common civility's sake--you came occasionally to the house you left her alone and spent your time in Felix's studio, under pretext of looking at his sketches." "Oh, come!" growled Clifford, again. "Did you ever know me to tell an untruth?" "Yes, lots of them!" said Clifford, seeing an opening, out of the discussion, for his sarcastic powers. "Well," he presently added, "I thought you were my father." "You knew someone was there?" "We heard you coming in." Acton meditated. "You had been with the Baroness, then?" "I was in the parlor. We heard your step outside. I thought it was my father." "And on that," asked Acton, "you ran away?" "She told me to go--to go out by the studio." Acton meditated more intensely; if there had been a chair at hand he would have sat down. "Why should she wish you not to meet your father?" "Well," said Clifford, "father doesn't like to see me there." Acton looked askance at his companion and forbore to make any comment upon this assertion. "Has he said so," he asked, "to the Baroness?" "Well, I hope not," said Clifford. "He hasn't said so--in so many words--to me. But I know it worries him; and I want to stop worrying him. The Baroness knows it, and she wants me to stop, too." "To stop coming to see her?" "I don't know about that; but to stop worrying father. Eugenia knows everything," Clifford added, with an air of knowingness of his own. "Ah," said Acton, interrogatively, "Eugenia knows everything?" "She knew it was not father coming in." "Then why did you go?" Clifford blushed and laughed afresh. "Well, I was afraid it was. And besides, she told me to go, at any rate." "Did she think it was I?" Acton asked. "She didn't say so." Again Robert Acton reflected. "But you didn't go," he presently said; "you came back." "I couldn't get out of the studio," Clifford rejoined. "The door was locked, and Felix has nailed some planks across the lower half of the confounded windows to make the light come in from above. So they were no use. I waited there a good while, and then, suddenly, I felt ashamed. I didn't want to be hiding away from my own father. I couldn't stand it any longer. I bolted out, and when I found it was you I was a little flurried. But Eugenia carried it off, didn't she?" Clifford added, in the tone of a young humorist whose perception had not been permanently clouded by the sense of his own discomfort. "Beautifully!" said Acton. "Especially," he continued, "when one remembers that you were very imprudent and that she must have been a good deal annoyed." "Oh," cried Clifford, with the indifference of a young man who feels that however he may have failed of felicity in behavior he is extremely just in his impressions, "Eugenia doesn't care for anything!" Acton hesitated a moment. "Thank you for telling me this," he said at last. And then, laying his hand on Clifford's shoulder, he added, "Tell me one thing more: are you by chance a little in love with the Baroness?" "No, sir!" said Clifford, almost shaking off his hand. CHAPTER X The first sunday that followed Robert Acton's return from Newport witnessed a change in the brilliant weather that had long prevailed. The rain began to fall and the day was cold and dreary. Mr. Wentworth and his daughters put on overshoes and went to church, and Felix Young, without overshoes, went also, holding an umbrella over Gertrude. It is to be feared that, in the whole observance, this was the privilege he most highly valued. The Baroness remained at home; she was in neither a cheerful nor a devotional mood. She had, however, never been, during her residence in the United States, what is called a regular attendant at divine service; and on this particular Sunday morning of which I began with speaking she stood at the window of her little drawing-room, watching the long arm of a rose tree that was attached to her piazza, but a portion of which had disengaged itself, sway to and fro, shake and gesticulate, against the dusky drizzle of the sky. Every now and then, in a gust of wind, the rose tree scattered a shower of water-drops against the window-pane; it appeared to have a kind of human movement--a menacing, warning intention. The room was very cold; Madame M nster put on a shawl and walked about. Then she determined to have some fire; and summoning her ancient negress, the contrast of whose polished ebony and whose crimson turban had been at first a source of satisfaction to her, she made arrangements for the production of a crackling flame. This old woman's name was Azarina. The Baroness had begun by thinking that there would be a savory wildness in her talk, and, for amusement, she had encouraged her to chatter. But Azarina was dry and prim; her conversation was anything but African; she reminded Eugenia of the tiresome old ladies she met in society. She knew, however, how to make a fire; so that after she had laid the logs, Eugenia, who was terribly bored, found a quarter of an hour's entertainment in sitting and watching them blaze and sputter. She had thought it very likely Robert Acton would come and see her; she had not met him since that infelicitous evening. But the morning waned without his coming; several times she thought she heard his step on the piazza; but it was only a window-shutter shaking in a rain-gust. The Baroness, since the beginning of that episode in her career of which a slight sketch has been attempted in these pages, had had many moments of irritation. But today her irritation had a peculiar keenness; it appeared to feed upon itself. It urged her to do something; but it suggested no particularly profitable line of action. If she could have done something at the moment, on the spot, she would have stepped upon a European steamer and turned her back, with a kind of rapture, upon that profoundly mortifying failure, her visit to her American relations. It is not exactly apparent why she should have termed this enterprise a failure, inasmuch as she had been treated with the highest distinction for which allowance had been made in American institutions. Her irritation came, at bottom, from the sense, which, always present, had suddenly grown acute, that the social soil on this big, vague continent was somehow not adapted for growing those plants whose fragrance she especially inclined to inhale and by which she liked to see herself surrounded--a species of vegetation for which she carried a collection of seedlings, as we may say, in her pocket. She found her chief happiness in the sense of exerting a certain power and making a certain impression; and now she felt the annoyance of a rather wearied swimmer who, on nearing shore, to land, finds a smooth straight wall of rock when he had counted upon a clean firm beach. Her power, in the American air, seemed to have lost its prehensile attributes; the smooth wall of rock was insurmountable. _"Surely je n'en suis pas l ,"_ she said to herself, "that I let it make me uncomfortable that a Mr. Robert Acton shouldn't honor me with a visit!" Yet she was vexed that he had not come; and she was vexed at her vexation. Her brother, at least, came in, stamping in the hall and shaking the wet from his coat. In a moment he entered the room, with a glow in his cheek and half-a-dozen rain-drops glistening on his moustache. "Ah, you have a fire," he said. _"Les beaux jours sont pass s,"_ replied the Baroness. "Never, never! They have only begun," Felix declared, planting himself before the hearth. He turned his back to the fire, placed his hands behind him, extended his legs and looked away through the window with an expression of face which seemed to denote the perception of rose-color even in the tints of a wet Sunday. His sister, from her chair, looked up at him, watching him; and what she saw in his face was not grateful to her present mood. She was puzzled by many things, but her brother's disposition was a frequent source of wonder to her. I say frequent and not constant, for there were long periods during which she gave her attention to other problems. Sometimes she had said to herself that his happy temper, his eternal gaiety, was an affectation, a _pose_; but she was vaguely conscious that during the present summer he had been a highly successful comedian. They had never yet had an explanation; she had not known the need of one. Felix was presumably following the bent of his disinterested genius, and she felt that she had no advice to give him that he would understand. With this, there was always a certain element of comfort about Felix--the assurance that he would not interfere. He was very delicate, this pure-minded Felix; in effect, he was her brother, and Madame M nster felt that there was a great propriety, every way, in that. It is true that Felix was delicate; he was not fond of explanations with his sister; this was one of the very few things in the world about which he was uncomfortable. But now he was not thinking of anything uncomfortable. "Dear brother," said Eugenia at last, "do stop making _les yeux doux_ at the rain." "With pleasure. I will make them at you!" answered Felix. "How much longer," asked Eugenia, in a moment, "do you propose to remain in this lovely spot?" Felix stared. "Do you want to go away--already?" "'Already' is delicious. I am not so happy as you." Felix dropped into a chair, looking at the fire. "The fact is I _am_ happy," he said in his light, clear tone. "And do you propose to spend your life in making love to Gertrude Wentworth?" "Yes!" said Felix, smiling sidewise at his sister. The Baroness returned his glance, much more gravely; and then, "Do you like her?" she asked. "Don't you?" Felix demanded. The Baroness was silent a moment. "I will answer you in the words of the gentleman who was asked if he liked music: _'Je ne la crains pas!'_" "She admires you immensely," said Felix. "I don't care for that. Other women should not admire one." "They should dislike you?" Again Madame M nster hesitated. "They should hate me! It's a measure of the time I have been losing here that they don't." "No time is lost in which one has been happy!" said Felix, with a bright sententiousness which may well have been a little irritating. "And in which," rejoined his sister, with a harsher laugh, "one has secured the affections of a young lady with a fortune!" Felix explained, very candidly and seriously. "I have secured Gertrude's affection, but I am by no means sure that I have secured her fortune. That may come--or it may not." "Ah, well, it _may!_ That's the great point." "It depends upon her father. He doesn't smile upon our union. You know he wants her to marry Mr. Brand." "I know nothing about it!" cried the Baroness. "Please to put on a log." Felix complied with her request and sat watching the quickening of the flame. Presently his sister added, "And you propose to elope with mademoiselle?" "By no means. I don't wish to do anything that's disagreeable to Mr. Wentworth. He has been far too kind to us." "But you must choose between pleasing yourself and pleasing him." "I want to please everyone!" exclaimed Felix, joyously. "I have a good conscience. I made up my mind at the outset that it was not my place to make love to Gertrude." "So, to simplify matters, she made love to you!" Felix looked at his sister with sudden gravity. "You say you are not afraid of her," he said. "But perhaps you ought to be--a little. She's a very clever person." "I begin to see it!" cried the Baroness. Her brother, making no rejoinder, leaned back in his chair, and there was a long silence. At last, with an altered accent, Madame M nster put another question. "You expect, at any rate, to marry?" "I shall be greatly disappointed if we don't." "A disappointment or two will do you good!" the Baroness declared. "And, afterwards, do you mean to turn American?" "It seems to me I am a very good American already. But we shall go to Europe. Gertrude wants extremely to see the world." "Ah, like me, when I came here!" said the Baroness, with a little laugh. "No, not like you," Felix rejoined, looking at his sister with a certain gentle seriousness. While he looked at her she rose from her chair, and he also got up. "Gertrude is not at all like you," he went on; "but in her own way she is almost as clever." He paused a moment; his soul was full of an agreeable feeling and of a lively disposition to express it. His sister, to his spiritual vision, was always like the lunar disk when only a part of it is lighted. The shadow on this bright surface seemed to him to expand and to contract; but whatever its proportions, he always appreciated the moonlight. He looked at the Baroness, and then he kissed her. "I am very much in | any | How many times the word 'any' appears in the text? | 2 |
us," said Acton. "That's what we must keep hold of!" He was too impatient to see Madame M nster again to wonder what Mr. Wentworth was talking about. Nevertheless, after he had passed out of the house and traversed the garden and the little piece of road that separated him from Eugenia's provisional residence, he stopped a moment outside. He stood in her little garden; the long window of her parlor was open, and he could see the white curtains, with the lamp-light shining through them, swaying softly to and fro in the warm night wind. There was a sort of excitement in the idea of seeing Madame M nster again; he became aware that his heart was beating rather faster than usual. It was this that made him stop, with a half-amused surprise. But in a moment he went along the piazza, and, approaching the open window, tapped upon its lintel with his stick. He could see the Baroness within; she was standing in the middle of the room. She came to the window and pulled aside the curtain; then she stood looking at him a moment. She was not smiling; she seemed serious. _"Mais entrez donc!"_ she said at last. Acton passed in across the window-sill; he wondered, for an instant, what was the matter with her. But the next moment she had begun to smile and had put out her hand. "Better late than never," she said. "It is very kind of you to come at this hour." "I have just returned from my journey," said Acton. "Ah, very kind, very kind," she repeated, looking about her where to sit. "I went first to the other house," Acton continued. "I expected to find you there." She had sunk into her usual chair; but she got up again, and began to move about the room. Acton had laid down his hat and stick; he was looking at her, conscious that there was in fact a great charm in seeing her again. "I don't know whether I ought to tell you to sit down," she said. "It is too late to begin a visit." "It's too early to end one," Acton declared; "and we needn't mind the beginning." She looked at him again, and, after a moment, dropped once more into her low chair, while he took a place near her. "We are in the middle, then?" she asked. "Was that where we were when you went away? No, I haven't been to the other house." "Not yesterday, nor the day before, eh?" "I don't know how many days it is." "You are tired of it," said Acton. She leaned back in her chair; her arms were folded. "That is a terrible accusation, but I have not the courage to defend myself." "I am not attacking you," said Acton. "I expected something of this kind." "It's a proof of extreme intelligence. I hope you enjoyed your journey." "Not at all," Acton declared. "I would much rather have been here with you." "Now you _are_ attacking me," said the Baroness. "You are contrasting my inconstancy with your own fidelity." "I confess I never get tired of people I like." "Ah, you are not a poor wicked foreign woman, with irritable nerves and a sophisticated mind!" "Something has happened to you since I went away," said Acton, changing his place. "Your going away--that is what has happened to me." "Do you mean to say that you have missed me?" he asked. "If I had meant to say it, it would not be worth your making a note of. I am very dishonest and my compliments are worthless." Acton was silent for some moments. "You have broken down," he said at last. Madame M nster left her chair, and began to move about. "Only for a moment. I shall pull myself together again." "You had better not take it too hard. If you are bored, you needn't be afraid to say so--to me at least." "You shouldn't say such things as that," the Baroness answered. "You should encourage me." "I admire your patience; that is encouraging." "You shouldn't even say that. When you talk of my patience you are disloyal to your own people. Patience implies suffering; and what have I had to suffer?" "Oh, not hunger, not unkindness, certainly," said Acton, laughing. "Nevertheless, we all admire your patience." "You all detest me!" cried the Baroness, with a sudden vehemence, turning her back toward him. "You make it hard," said Acton, getting up, "for a man to say something tender to you." This evening there was something particularly striking and touching about her; an unwonted softness and a look of suppressed emotion. He felt himself suddenly appreciating the fact that she had behaved very well. She had come to this quiet corner of the world under the weight of a cruel indignity, and she had been so gracefully, modestly thankful for the rest she found there. She had joined that simple circle over the way; she had mingled in its plain, provincial talk; she had shared its meagre and savorless pleasures. She had set herself a task, and she had rigidly performed it. She had conformed to the angular conditions of New England life, and she had had the tact and pluck to carry it off as if she liked them. Acton felt a more downright need than he had ever felt before to tell her that he admired her and that she struck him as a very superior woman. All along, hitherto, he had been on his guard with her; he had been cautious, observant, suspicious. But now a certain light tumult in his blood seemed to tell him that a finer degree of confidence in this charming woman would be its own reward. "We don't detest you," he went on. "I don't know what you mean. At any rate, I speak for myself; I don't know anything about the others. Very likely, you detest them for the dull life they make you lead. Really, it would give me a sort of pleasure to hear you say so." Eugenia had been looking at the door on the other side of the room; now she slowly turned her eyes toward Robert Acton. "What can be the motive," she asked, "of a man like you--an honest man, a _galant homme_--in saying so base a thing as that?" "Does it sound very base?" asked Acton, candidly. "I suppose it does, and I thank you for telling me so. Of course, I don't mean it literally." The Baroness stood looking at him. "How do you mean it?" she asked. This question was difficult to answer, and Acton, feeling the least bit foolish, walked to the open window and looked out. He stood there, thinking a moment, and then he turned back. "You know that document that you were to send to Germany," he said. "You called it your 'renunciation.' Did you ever send it?" Madame M nster's eyes expanded; she looked very grave. "What a singular answer to my question!" "Oh, it isn't an answer," said Acton. "I have wished to ask you, many times. I thought it probable you would tell me yourself. The question, on my part, seems abrupt now; but it would be abrupt at any time." The Baroness was silent a moment; and then, "I think I have told you too much!" she said. This declaration appeared to Acton to have a certain force; he had indeed a sense of asking more of her than he offered her. He returned to the window, and watched, for a moment, a little star that twinkled through the lattice of the piazza. There were at any rate offers enough he could make; perhaps he had hitherto not been sufficiently explicit in doing so. "I wish you would ask something of me," he presently said. "Is there nothing I can do for you? If you can't stand this dull life any more, let me amuse you!" The Baroness had sunk once more into a chair, and she had taken up a fan which she held, with both hands, to her mouth. Over the top of the fan her eyes were fixed on him. "You are very strange tonight," she said, with a little laugh. "I will do anything in the world," he rejoined, standing in front of her. "Shouldn't you like to travel about and see something of the country? Won't you go to Niagara? You ought to see Niagara, you know." "With you, do you mean?" "I should be delighted to take you." "You alone?" Acton looked at her, smiling, and yet with a serious air. "Well, yes; we might go alone," he said. "If you were not what you are," she answered, "I should feel insulted." "How do you mean--what I am?" "If you were one of the gentlemen I have been used to all my life. If you were not a queer Bostonian." "If the gentlemen you have been used to have taught you to expect insults," said Acton, "I am glad I am what I am. You had much better come to Niagara." "If you wish to 'amuse' me," the Baroness declared, "you need go to no further expense. You amuse me very effectually." He sat down opposite to her; she still held her fan up to her face, with her eyes only showing above it. There was a moment's silence, and then he said, returning to his former question, "Have you sent that document to Germany?" Again there was a moment's silence. The expressive eyes of Madame M nster seemed, however, half to break it. "I will tell you--at Niagara!" she said. She had hardly spoken when the door at the further end of the room opened--the door upon which, some minutes previous, Eugenia had fixed her gaze. Clifford Wentworth stood there, blushing and looking rather awkward. The Baroness rose, quickly, and Acton, more slowly, did the same. Clifford gave him no greeting; he was looking at Eugenia. "Ah, you were here?" exclaimed Acton. "He was in Felix's studio," said Madame M nster. "He wanted to see his sketches." Clifford looked at Robert Acton, but said nothing; he only fanned himself with his hat. "You chose a bad moment," said Acton; "you hadn't much light." "I hadn't any!" said Clifford, laughing. "Your candle went out?" Eugenia asked. "You should have come back here and lighted it again." Clifford looked at her a moment. "So I have--come back. But I have left the candle!" Eugenia turned away. "You are very stupid, my poor boy. You had better go home." "Well," said Clifford, "good-night!" "Haven't you a word to throw to a man when he has safely returned from a dangerous journey?" Acton asked. "How do you do?" said Clifford. "I thought--I thought you were----" and he paused, looking at the Baroness again. "You thought I was at Newport, eh? So I was--this morning." "Good-night, clever child!" said Madame M nster, over her shoulder. Clifford stared at her--not at all like a clever child; and then, with one of his little facetious growls, took his departure. "What is the matter with him?" asked Acton, when he was gone. "He seemed rather in a muddle." Eugenia, who was near the window, glanced out, listening a moment. "The matter--the matter"--she answered. "But you don't say such things here." "If you mean that he had been drinking a little, you can say that." "He doesn't drink any more. I have cured him. And in return--he's in love with me." It was Acton's turn to stare. He instantly thought of his sister; but he said nothing about her. He began to laugh. "I don't wonder at his passion! But I wonder at his forsaking your society for that of your brother's paint-brushes." Eugenia was silent a little. "He had not been in the studio. I invented that at the moment." "Invented it? For what purpose?" "He has an idea of being romantic. He has adopted the habit of coming to see me at midnight--passing only through the orchard and through Felix's painting-room, which has a door opening that way. It seems to amuse him," added Eugenia, with a little laugh. Acton felt more surprise than he confessed to, for this was a new view of Clifford, whose irregularities had hitherto been quite without the romantic element. He tried to laugh again, but he felt rather too serious, and after a moment's hesitation his seriousness explained itself. "I hope you don't encourage him," he said. "He must not be inconstant to poor Lizzie." "To your sister?" "You know they are decidedly intimate," said Acton. "Ah," cried Eugenia, smiling, "has she--has she----" "I don't know," Acton interrupted, "what she has. But I always supposed that Clifford had a desire to make himself agreeable to her." "Ah, _par exemple!_" the Baroness went on. "The little monster! The next time he becomes sentimental I will him tell that he ought to be ashamed of himself." Acton was silent a moment. "You had better say nothing about it." "I had told him as much already, on general grounds," said the Baroness. "But in this country, you know, the relations of young people are so extraordinary that one is quite at sea. They are not engaged when you would quite say they ought to be. Take Charlotte Wentworth, for instance, and that young ecclesiastic. If I were her father I should insist upon his marrying her; but it appears to be thought there is no urgency. On the other hand, you suddenly learn that a boy of twenty and a little girl who is still with her governess--your sister has no governess? Well, then, who is never away from her mamma--a young couple, in short, between whom you have noticed nothing beyond an exchange of the childish pleasantries characteristic of their age, are on the point of setting up as man and wife." The Baroness spoke with a certain exaggerated volubility which was in contrast with the languid grace that had characterized her manner before Clifford made his appearance. It seemed to Acton that there was a spark of irritation in her eye--a note of irony (as when she spoke of Lizzie being never away from her mother) in her voice. If Madame M nster was irritated, Robert Acton was vaguely mystified; she began to move about the room again, and he looked at her without saying anything. Presently she took out her watch, and, glancing at it, declared that it was three o'clock in the morning and that he must go. "I have not been here an hour," he said, "and they are still sitting up at the other house. You can see the lights. Your brother has not come in." "Oh, at the other house," cried Eugenia, "they are terrible people! I don't know what they may do over there. I am a quiet little humdrum woman; I have rigid rules and I keep them. One of them is not to have visitors in the small hours--especially clever men like you. So good-night!" Decidedly, the Baroness was incisive; and though Acton bade her good-night and departed, he was still a good deal mystified. The next day Clifford Wentworth came to see Lizzie, and Acton, who was at home and saw him pass through the garden, took note of the circumstance. He had a natural desire to make it tally with Madame M nster's account of Clifford's disaffection; but his ingenuity, finding itself unequal to the task, resolved at last to ask help of the young man's candor. He waited till he saw him going away, and then he went out and overtook him in the grounds. "I wish very much you would answer me a question," Acton said. "What were you doing, last night, at Madame M nster's?" Clifford began to laugh and to blush, by no means like a young man with a romantic secret. "What did she tell you?" he asked. "That is exactly what I don't want to say." "Well, I want to tell you the same," said Clifford; "and unless I know it perhaps I can't." They had stopped in a garden path; Acton looked hard at his rosy young kinsman. "She said she couldn't fancy what had got into you; you appeared to have taken a violent dislike to her." Clifford stared, looking a little alarmed. "Oh, come," he growled, "you don't mean that!" "And that when--for common civility's sake--you came occasionally to the house you left her alone and spent your time in Felix's studio, under pretext of looking at his sketches." "Oh, come!" growled Clifford, again. "Did you ever know me to tell an untruth?" "Yes, lots of them!" said Clifford, seeing an opening, out of the discussion, for his sarcastic powers. "Well," he presently added, "I thought you were my father." "You knew someone was there?" "We heard you coming in." Acton meditated. "You had been with the Baroness, then?" "I was in the parlor. We heard your step outside. I thought it was my father." "And on that," asked Acton, "you ran away?" "She told me to go--to go out by the studio." Acton meditated more intensely; if there had been a chair at hand he would have sat down. "Why should she wish you not to meet your father?" "Well," said Clifford, "father doesn't like to see me there." Acton looked askance at his companion and forbore to make any comment upon this assertion. "Has he said so," he asked, "to the Baroness?" "Well, I hope not," said Clifford. "He hasn't said so--in so many words--to me. But I know it worries him; and I want to stop worrying him. The Baroness knows it, and she wants me to stop, too." "To stop coming to see her?" "I don't know about that; but to stop worrying father. Eugenia knows everything," Clifford added, with an air of knowingness of his own. "Ah," said Acton, interrogatively, "Eugenia knows everything?" "She knew it was not father coming in." "Then why did you go?" Clifford blushed and laughed afresh. "Well, I was afraid it was. And besides, she told me to go, at any rate." "Did she think it was I?" Acton asked. "She didn't say so." Again Robert Acton reflected. "But you didn't go," he presently said; "you came back." "I couldn't get out of the studio," Clifford rejoined. "The door was locked, and Felix has nailed some planks across the lower half of the confounded windows to make the light come in from above. So they were no use. I waited there a good while, and then, suddenly, I felt ashamed. I didn't want to be hiding away from my own father. I couldn't stand it any longer. I bolted out, and when I found it was you I was a little flurried. But Eugenia carried it off, didn't she?" Clifford added, in the tone of a young humorist whose perception had not been permanently clouded by the sense of his own discomfort. "Beautifully!" said Acton. "Especially," he continued, "when one remembers that you were very imprudent and that she must have been a good deal annoyed." "Oh," cried Clifford, with the indifference of a young man who feels that however he may have failed of felicity in behavior he is extremely just in his impressions, "Eugenia doesn't care for anything!" Acton hesitated a moment. "Thank you for telling me this," he said at last. And then, laying his hand on Clifford's shoulder, he added, "Tell me one thing more: are you by chance a little in love with the Baroness?" "No, sir!" said Clifford, almost shaking off his hand. CHAPTER X The first sunday that followed Robert Acton's return from Newport witnessed a change in the brilliant weather that had long prevailed. The rain began to fall and the day was cold and dreary. Mr. Wentworth and his daughters put on overshoes and went to church, and Felix Young, without overshoes, went also, holding an umbrella over Gertrude. It is to be feared that, in the whole observance, this was the privilege he most highly valued. The Baroness remained at home; she was in neither a cheerful nor a devotional mood. She had, however, never been, during her residence in the United States, what is called a regular attendant at divine service; and on this particular Sunday morning of which I began with speaking she stood at the window of her little drawing-room, watching the long arm of a rose tree that was attached to her piazza, but a portion of which had disengaged itself, sway to and fro, shake and gesticulate, against the dusky drizzle of the sky. Every now and then, in a gust of wind, the rose tree scattered a shower of water-drops against the window-pane; it appeared to have a kind of human movement--a menacing, warning intention. The room was very cold; Madame M nster put on a shawl and walked about. Then she determined to have some fire; and summoning her ancient negress, the contrast of whose polished ebony and whose crimson turban had been at first a source of satisfaction to her, she made arrangements for the production of a crackling flame. This old woman's name was Azarina. The Baroness had begun by thinking that there would be a savory wildness in her talk, and, for amusement, she had encouraged her to chatter. But Azarina was dry and prim; her conversation was anything but African; she reminded Eugenia of the tiresome old ladies she met in society. She knew, however, how to make a fire; so that after she had laid the logs, Eugenia, who was terribly bored, found a quarter of an hour's entertainment in sitting and watching them blaze and sputter. She had thought it very likely Robert Acton would come and see her; she had not met him since that infelicitous evening. But the morning waned without his coming; several times she thought she heard his step on the piazza; but it was only a window-shutter shaking in a rain-gust. The Baroness, since the beginning of that episode in her career of which a slight sketch has been attempted in these pages, had had many moments of irritation. But today her irritation had a peculiar keenness; it appeared to feed upon itself. It urged her to do something; but it suggested no particularly profitable line of action. If she could have done something at the moment, on the spot, she would have stepped upon a European steamer and turned her back, with a kind of rapture, upon that profoundly mortifying failure, her visit to her American relations. It is not exactly apparent why she should have termed this enterprise a failure, inasmuch as she had been treated with the highest distinction for which allowance had been made in American institutions. Her irritation came, at bottom, from the sense, which, always present, had suddenly grown acute, that the social soil on this big, vague continent was somehow not adapted for growing those plants whose fragrance she especially inclined to inhale and by which she liked to see herself surrounded--a species of vegetation for which she carried a collection of seedlings, as we may say, in her pocket. She found her chief happiness in the sense of exerting a certain power and making a certain impression; and now she felt the annoyance of a rather wearied swimmer who, on nearing shore, to land, finds a smooth straight wall of rock when he had counted upon a clean firm beach. Her power, in the American air, seemed to have lost its prehensile attributes; the smooth wall of rock was insurmountable. _"Surely je n'en suis pas l ,"_ she said to herself, "that I let it make me uncomfortable that a Mr. Robert Acton shouldn't honor me with a visit!" Yet she was vexed that he had not come; and she was vexed at her vexation. Her brother, at least, came in, stamping in the hall and shaking the wet from his coat. In a moment he entered the room, with a glow in his cheek and half-a-dozen rain-drops glistening on his moustache. "Ah, you have a fire," he said. _"Les beaux jours sont pass s,"_ replied the Baroness. "Never, never! They have only begun," Felix declared, planting himself before the hearth. He turned his back to the fire, placed his hands behind him, extended his legs and looked away through the window with an expression of face which seemed to denote the perception of rose-color even in the tints of a wet Sunday. His sister, from her chair, looked up at him, watching him; and what she saw in his face was not grateful to her present mood. She was puzzled by many things, but her brother's disposition was a frequent source of wonder to her. I say frequent and not constant, for there were long periods during which she gave her attention to other problems. Sometimes she had said to herself that his happy temper, his eternal gaiety, was an affectation, a _pose_; but she was vaguely conscious that during the present summer he had been a highly successful comedian. They had never yet had an explanation; she had not known the need of one. Felix was presumably following the bent of his disinterested genius, and she felt that she had no advice to give him that he would understand. With this, there was always a certain element of comfort about Felix--the assurance that he would not interfere. He was very delicate, this pure-minded Felix; in effect, he was her brother, and Madame M nster felt that there was a great propriety, every way, in that. It is true that Felix was delicate; he was not fond of explanations with his sister; this was one of the very few things in the world about which he was uncomfortable. But now he was not thinking of anything uncomfortable. "Dear brother," said Eugenia at last, "do stop making _les yeux doux_ at the rain." "With pleasure. I will make them at you!" answered Felix. "How much longer," asked Eugenia, in a moment, "do you propose to remain in this lovely spot?" Felix stared. "Do you want to go away--already?" "'Already' is delicious. I am not so happy as you." Felix dropped into a chair, looking at the fire. "The fact is I _am_ happy," he said in his light, clear tone. "And do you propose to spend your life in making love to Gertrude Wentworth?" "Yes!" said Felix, smiling sidewise at his sister. The Baroness returned his glance, much more gravely; and then, "Do you like her?" she asked. "Don't you?" Felix demanded. The Baroness was silent a moment. "I will answer you in the words of the gentleman who was asked if he liked music: _'Je ne la crains pas!'_" "She admires you immensely," said Felix. "I don't care for that. Other women should not admire one." "They should dislike you?" Again Madame M nster hesitated. "They should hate me! It's a measure of the time I have been losing here that they don't." "No time is lost in which one has been happy!" said Felix, with a bright sententiousness which may well have been a little irritating. "And in which," rejoined his sister, with a harsher laugh, "one has secured the affections of a young lady with a fortune!" Felix explained, very candidly and seriously. "I have secured Gertrude's affection, but I am by no means sure that I have secured her fortune. That may come--or it may not." "Ah, well, it _may!_ That's the great point." "It depends upon her father. He doesn't smile upon our union. You know he wants her to marry Mr. Brand." "I know nothing about it!" cried the Baroness. "Please to put on a log." Felix complied with her request and sat watching the quickening of the flame. Presently his sister added, "And you propose to elope with mademoiselle?" "By no means. I don't wish to do anything that's disagreeable to Mr. Wentworth. He has been far too kind to us." "But you must choose between pleasing yourself and pleasing him." "I want to please everyone!" exclaimed Felix, joyously. "I have a good conscience. I made up my mind at the outset that it was not my place to make love to Gertrude." "So, to simplify matters, she made love to you!" Felix looked at his sister with sudden gravity. "You say you are not afraid of her," he said. "But perhaps you ought to be--a little. She's a very clever person." "I begin to see it!" cried the Baroness. Her brother, making no rejoinder, leaned back in his chair, and there was a long silence. At last, with an altered accent, Madame M nster put another question. "You expect, at any rate, to marry?" "I shall be greatly disappointed if we don't." "A disappointment or two will do you good!" the Baroness declared. "And, afterwards, do you mean to turn American?" "It seems to me I am a very good American already. But we shall go to Europe. Gertrude wants extremely to see the world." "Ah, like me, when I came here!" said the Baroness, with a little laugh. "No, not like you," Felix rejoined, looking at his sister with a certain gentle seriousness. While he looked at her she rose from her chair, and he also got up. "Gertrude is not at all like you," he went on; "but in her own way she is almost as clever." He paused a moment; his soul was full of an agreeable feeling and of a lively disposition to express it. His sister, to his spiritual vision, was always like the lunar disk when only a part of it is lighted. The shadow on this bright surface seemed to him to expand and to contract; but whatever its proportions, he always appreciated the moonlight. He looked at the Baroness, and then he kissed her. "I am very much in | silent | How many times the word 'silent' appears in the text? | 3 |
us," said Acton. "That's what we must keep hold of!" He was too impatient to see Madame M nster again to wonder what Mr. Wentworth was talking about. Nevertheless, after he had passed out of the house and traversed the garden and the little piece of road that separated him from Eugenia's provisional residence, he stopped a moment outside. He stood in her little garden; the long window of her parlor was open, and he could see the white curtains, with the lamp-light shining through them, swaying softly to and fro in the warm night wind. There was a sort of excitement in the idea of seeing Madame M nster again; he became aware that his heart was beating rather faster than usual. It was this that made him stop, with a half-amused surprise. But in a moment he went along the piazza, and, approaching the open window, tapped upon its lintel with his stick. He could see the Baroness within; she was standing in the middle of the room. She came to the window and pulled aside the curtain; then she stood looking at him a moment. She was not smiling; she seemed serious. _"Mais entrez donc!"_ she said at last. Acton passed in across the window-sill; he wondered, for an instant, what was the matter with her. But the next moment she had begun to smile and had put out her hand. "Better late than never," she said. "It is very kind of you to come at this hour." "I have just returned from my journey," said Acton. "Ah, very kind, very kind," she repeated, looking about her where to sit. "I went first to the other house," Acton continued. "I expected to find you there." She had sunk into her usual chair; but she got up again, and began to move about the room. Acton had laid down his hat and stick; he was looking at her, conscious that there was in fact a great charm in seeing her again. "I don't know whether I ought to tell you to sit down," she said. "It is too late to begin a visit." "It's too early to end one," Acton declared; "and we needn't mind the beginning." She looked at him again, and, after a moment, dropped once more into her low chair, while he took a place near her. "We are in the middle, then?" she asked. "Was that where we were when you went away? No, I haven't been to the other house." "Not yesterday, nor the day before, eh?" "I don't know how many days it is." "You are tired of it," said Acton. She leaned back in her chair; her arms were folded. "That is a terrible accusation, but I have not the courage to defend myself." "I am not attacking you," said Acton. "I expected something of this kind." "It's a proof of extreme intelligence. I hope you enjoyed your journey." "Not at all," Acton declared. "I would much rather have been here with you." "Now you _are_ attacking me," said the Baroness. "You are contrasting my inconstancy with your own fidelity." "I confess I never get tired of people I like." "Ah, you are not a poor wicked foreign woman, with irritable nerves and a sophisticated mind!" "Something has happened to you since I went away," said Acton, changing his place. "Your going away--that is what has happened to me." "Do you mean to say that you have missed me?" he asked. "If I had meant to say it, it would not be worth your making a note of. I am very dishonest and my compliments are worthless." Acton was silent for some moments. "You have broken down," he said at last. Madame M nster left her chair, and began to move about. "Only for a moment. I shall pull myself together again." "You had better not take it too hard. If you are bored, you needn't be afraid to say so--to me at least." "You shouldn't say such things as that," the Baroness answered. "You should encourage me." "I admire your patience; that is encouraging." "You shouldn't even say that. When you talk of my patience you are disloyal to your own people. Patience implies suffering; and what have I had to suffer?" "Oh, not hunger, not unkindness, certainly," said Acton, laughing. "Nevertheless, we all admire your patience." "You all detest me!" cried the Baroness, with a sudden vehemence, turning her back toward him. "You make it hard," said Acton, getting up, "for a man to say something tender to you." This evening there was something particularly striking and touching about her; an unwonted softness and a look of suppressed emotion. He felt himself suddenly appreciating the fact that she had behaved very well. She had come to this quiet corner of the world under the weight of a cruel indignity, and she had been so gracefully, modestly thankful for the rest she found there. She had joined that simple circle over the way; she had mingled in its plain, provincial talk; she had shared its meagre and savorless pleasures. She had set herself a task, and she had rigidly performed it. She had conformed to the angular conditions of New England life, and she had had the tact and pluck to carry it off as if she liked them. Acton felt a more downright need than he had ever felt before to tell her that he admired her and that she struck him as a very superior woman. All along, hitherto, he had been on his guard with her; he had been cautious, observant, suspicious. But now a certain light tumult in his blood seemed to tell him that a finer degree of confidence in this charming woman would be its own reward. "We don't detest you," he went on. "I don't know what you mean. At any rate, I speak for myself; I don't know anything about the others. Very likely, you detest them for the dull life they make you lead. Really, it would give me a sort of pleasure to hear you say so." Eugenia had been looking at the door on the other side of the room; now she slowly turned her eyes toward Robert Acton. "What can be the motive," she asked, "of a man like you--an honest man, a _galant homme_--in saying so base a thing as that?" "Does it sound very base?" asked Acton, candidly. "I suppose it does, and I thank you for telling me so. Of course, I don't mean it literally." The Baroness stood looking at him. "How do you mean it?" she asked. This question was difficult to answer, and Acton, feeling the least bit foolish, walked to the open window and looked out. He stood there, thinking a moment, and then he turned back. "You know that document that you were to send to Germany," he said. "You called it your 'renunciation.' Did you ever send it?" Madame M nster's eyes expanded; she looked very grave. "What a singular answer to my question!" "Oh, it isn't an answer," said Acton. "I have wished to ask you, many times. I thought it probable you would tell me yourself. The question, on my part, seems abrupt now; but it would be abrupt at any time." The Baroness was silent a moment; and then, "I think I have told you too much!" she said. This declaration appeared to Acton to have a certain force; he had indeed a sense of asking more of her than he offered her. He returned to the window, and watched, for a moment, a little star that twinkled through the lattice of the piazza. There were at any rate offers enough he could make; perhaps he had hitherto not been sufficiently explicit in doing so. "I wish you would ask something of me," he presently said. "Is there nothing I can do for you? If you can't stand this dull life any more, let me amuse you!" The Baroness had sunk once more into a chair, and she had taken up a fan which she held, with both hands, to her mouth. Over the top of the fan her eyes were fixed on him. "You are very strange tonight," she said, with a little laugh. "I will do anything in the world," he rejoined, standing in front of her. "Shouldn't you like to travel about and see something of the country? Won't you go to Niagara? You ought to see Niagara, you know." "With you, do you mean?" "I should be delighted to take you." "You alone?" Acton looked at her, smiling, and yet with a serious air. "Well, yes; we might go alone," he said. "If you were not what you are," she answered, "I should feel insulted." "How do you mean--what I am?" "If you were one of the gentlemen I have been used to all my life. If you were not a queer Bostonian." "If the gentlemen you have been used to have taught you to expect insults," said Acton, "I am glad I am what I am. You had much better come to Niagara." "If you wish to 'amuse' me," the Baroness declared, "you need go to no further expense. You amuse me very effectually." He sat down opposite to her; she still held her fan up to her face, with her eyes only showing above it. There was a moment's silence, and then he said, returning to his former question, "Have you sent that document to Germany?" Again there was a moment's silence. The expressive eyes of Madame M nster seemed, however, half to break it. "I will tell you--at Niagara!" she said. She had hardly spoken when the door at the further end of the room opened--the door upon which, some minutes previous, Eugenia had fixed her gaze. Clifford Wentworth stood there, blushing and looking rather awkward. The Baroness rose, quickly, and Acton, more slowly, did the same. Clifford gave him no greeting; he was looking at Eugenia. "Ah, you were here?" exclaimed Acton. "He was in Felix's studio," said Madame M nster. "He wanted to see his sketches." Clifford looked at Robert Acton, but said nothing; he only fanned himself with his hat. "You chose a bad moment," said Acton; "you hadn't much light." "I hadn't any!" said Clifford, laughing. "Your candle went out?" Eugenia asked. "You should have come back here and lighted it again." Clifford looked at her a moment. "So I have--come back. But I have left the candle!" Eugenia turned away. "You are very stupid, my poor boy. You had better go home." "Well," said Clifford, "good-night!" "Haven't you a word to throw to a man when he has safely returned from a dangerous journey?" Acton asked. "How do you do?" said Clifford. "I thought--I thought you were----" and he paused, looking at the Baroness again. "You thought I was at Newport, eh? So I was--this morning." "Good-night, clever child!" said Madame M nster, over her shoulder. Clifford stared at her--not at all like a clever child; and then, with one of his little facetious growls, took his departure. "What is the matter with him?" asked Acton, when he was gone. "He seemed rather in a muddle." Eugenia, who was near the window, glanced out, listening a moment. "The matter--the matter"--she answered. "But you don't say such things here." "If you mean that he had been drinking a little, you can say that." "He doesn't drink any more. I have cured him. And in return--he's in love with me." It was Acton's turn to stare. He instantly thought of his sister; but he said nothing about her. He began to laugh. "I don't wonder at his passion! But I wonder at his forsaking your society for that of your brother's paint-brushes." Eugenia was silent a little. "He had not been in the studio. I invented that at the moment." "Invented it? For what purpose?" "He has an idea of being romantic. He has adopted the habit of coming to see me at midnight--passing only through the orchard and through Felix's painting-room, which has a door opening that way. It seems to amuse him," added Eugenia, with a little laugh. Acton felt more surprise than he confessed to, for this was a new view of Clifford, whose irregularities had hitherto been quite without the romantic element. He tried to laugh again, but he felt rather too serious, and after a moment's hesitation his seriousness explained itself. "I hope you don't encourage him," he said. "He must not be inconstant to poor Lizzie." "To your sister?" "You know they are decidedly intimate," said Acton. "Ah," cried Eugenia, smiling, "has she--has she----" "I don't know," Acton interrupted, "what she has. But I always supposed that Clifford had a desire to make himself agreeable to her." "Ah, _par exemple!_" the Baroness went on. "The little monster! The next time he becomes sentimental I will him tell that he ought to be ashamed of himself." Acton was silent a moment. "You had better say nothing about it." "I had told him as much already, on general grounds," said the Baroness. "But in this country, you know, the relations of young people are so extraordinary that one is quite at sea. They are not engaged when you would quite say they ought to be. Take Charlotte Wentworth, for instance, and that young ecclesiastic. If I were her father I should insist upon his marrying her; but it appears to be thought there is no urgency. On the other hand, you suddenly learn that a boy of twenty and a little girl who is still with her governess--your sister has no governess? Well, then, who is never away from her mamma--a young couple, in short, between whom you have noticed nothing beyond an exchange of the childish pleasantries characteristic of their age, are on the point of setting up as man and wife." The Baroness spoke with a certain exaggerated volubility which was in contrast with the languid grace that had characterized her manner before Clifford made his appearance. It seemed to Acton that there was a spark of irritation in her eye--a note of irony (as when she spoke of Lizzie being never away from her mother) in her voice. If Madame M nster was irritated, Robert Acton was vaguely mystified; she began to move about the room again, and he looked at her without saying anything. Presently she took out her watch, and, glancing at it, declared that it was three o'clock in the morning and that he must go. "I have not been here an hour," he said, "and they are still sitting up at the other house. You can see the lights. Your brother has not come in." "Oh, at the other house," cried Eugenia, "they are terrible people! I don't know what they may do over there. I am a quiet little humdrum woman; I have rigid rules and I keep them. One of them is not to have visitors in the small hours--especially clever men like you. So good-night!" Decidedly, the Baroness was incisive; and though Acton bade her good-night and departed, he was still a good deal mystified. The next day Clifford Wentworth came to see Lizzie, and Acton, who was at home and saw him pass through the garden, took note of the circumstance. He had a natural desire to make it tally with Madame M nster's account of Clifford's disaffection; but his ingenuity, finding itself unequal to the task, resolved at last to ask help of the young man's candor. He waited till he saw him going away, and then he went out and overtook him in the grounds. "I wish very much you would answer me a question," Acton said. "What were you doing, last night, at Madame M nster's?" Clifford began to laugh and to blush, by no means like a young man with a romantic secret. "What did she tell you?" he asked. "That is exactly what I don't want to say." "Well, I want to tell you the same," said Clifford; "and unless I know it perhaps I can't." They had stopped in a garden path; Acton looked hard at his rosy young kinsman. "She said she couldn't fancy what had got into you; you appeared to have taken a violent dislike to her." Clifford stared, looking a little alarmed. "Oh, come," he growled, "you don't mean that!" "And that when--for common civility's sake--you came occasionally to the house you left her alone and spent your time in Felix's studio, under pretext of looking at his sketches." "Oh, come!" growled Clifford, again. "Did you ever know me to tell an untruth?" "Yes, lots of them!" said Clifford, seeing an opening, out of the discussion, for his sarcastic powers. "Well," he presently added, "I thought you were my father." "You knew someone was there?" "We heard you coming in." Acton meditated. "You had been with the Baroness, then?" "I was in the parlor. We heard your step outside. I thought it was my father." "And on that," asked Acton, "you ran away?" "She told me to go--to go out by the studio." Acton meditated more intensely; if there had been a chair at hand he would have sat down. "Why should she wish you not to meet your father?" "Well," said Clifford, "father doesn't like to see me there." Acton looked askance at his companion and forbore to make any comment upon this assertion. "Has he said so," he asked, "to the Baroness?" "Well, I hope not," said Clifford. "He hasn't said so--in so many words--to me. But I know it worries him; and I want to stop worrying him. The Baroness knows it, and she wants me to stop, too." "To stop coming to see her?" "I don't know about that; but to stop worrying father. Eugenia knows everything," Clifford added, with an air of knowingness of his own. "Ah," said Acton, interrogatively, "Eugenia knows everything?" "She knew it was not father coming in." "Then why did you go?" Clifford blushed and laughed afresh. "Well, I was afraid it was. And besides, she told me to go, at any rate." "Did she think it was I?" Acton asked. "She didn't say so." Again Robert Acton reflected. "But you didn't go," he presently said; "you came back." "I couldn't get out of the studio," Clifford rejoined. "The door was locked, and Felix has nailed some planks across the lower half of the confounded windows to make the light come in from above. So they were no use. I waited there a good while, and then, suddenly, I felt ashamed. I didn't want to be hiding away from my own father. I couldn't stand it any longer. I bolted out, and when I found it was you I was a little flurried. But Eugenia carried it off, didn't she?" Clifford added, in the tone of a young humorist whose perception had not been permanently clouded by the sense of his own discomfort. "Beautifully!" said Acton. "Especially," he continued, "when one remembers that you were very imprudent and that she must have been a good deal annoyed." "Oh," cried Clifford, with the indifference of a young man who feels that however he may have failed of felicity in behavior he is extremely just in his impressions, "Eugenia doesn't care for anything!" Acton hesitated a moment. "Thank you for telling me this," he said at last. And then, laying his hand on Clifford's shoulder, he added, "Tell me one thing more: are you by chance a little in love with the Baroness?" "No, sir!" said Clifford, almost shaking off his hand. CHAPTER X The first sunday that followed Robert Acton's return from Newport witnessed a change in the brilliant weather that had long prevailed. The rain began to fall and the day was cold and dreary. Mr. Wentworth and his daughters put on overshoes and went to church, and Felix Young, without overshoes, went also, holding an umbrella over Gertrude. It is to be feared that, in the whole observance, this was the privilege he most highly valued. The Baroness remained at home; she was in neither a cheerful nor a devotional mood. She had, however, never been, during her residence in the United States, what is called a regular attendant at divine service; and on this particular Sunday morning of which I began with speaking she stood at the window of her little drawing-room, watching the long arm of a rose tree that was attached to her piazza, but a portion of which had disengaged itself, sway to and fro, shake and gesticulate, against the dusky drizzle of the sky. Every now and then, in a gust of wind, the rose tree scattered a shower of water-drops against the window-pane; it appeared to have a kind of human movement--a menacing, warning intention. The room was very cold; Madame M nster put on a shawl and walked about. Then she determined to have some fire; and summoning her ancient negress, the contrast of whose polished ebony and whose crimson turban had been at first a source of satisfaction to her, she made arrangements for the production of a crackling flame. This old woman's name was Azarina. The Baroness had begun by thinking that there would be a savory wildness in her talk, and, for amusement, she had encouraged her to chatter. But Azarina was dry and prim; her conversation was anything but African; she reminded Eugenia of the tiresome old ladies she met in society. She knew, however, how to make a fire; so that after she had laid the logs, Eugenia, who was terribly bored, found a quarter of an hour's entertainment in sitting and watching them blaze and sputter. She had thought it very likely Robert Acton would come and see her; she had not met him since that infelicitous evening. But the morning waned without his coming; several times she thought she heard his step on the piazza; but it was only a window-shutter shaking in a rain-gust. The Baroness, since the beginning of that episode in her career of which a slight sketch has been attempted in these pages, had had many moments of irritation. But today her irritation had a peculiar keenness; it appeared to feed upon itself. It urged her to do something; but it suggested no particularly profitable line of action. If she could have done something at the moment, on the spot, she would have stepped upon a European steamer and turned her back, with a kind of rapture, upon that profoundly mortifying failure, her visit to her American relations. It is not exactly apparent why she should have termed this enterprise a failure, inasmuch as she had been treated with the highest distinction for which allowance had been made in American institutions. Her irritation came, at bottom, from the sense, which, always present, had suddenly grown acute, that the social soil on this big, vague continent was somehow not adapted for growing those plants whose fragrance she especially inclined to inhale and by which she liked to see herself surrounded--a species of vegetation for which she carried a collection of seedlings, as we may say, in her pocket. She found her chief happiness in the sense of exerting a certain power and making a certain impression; and now she felt the annoyance of a rather wearied swimmer who, on nearing shore, to land, finds a smooth straight wall of rock when he had counted upon a clean firm beach. Her power, in the American air, seemed to have lost its prehensile attributes; the smooth wall of rock was insurmountable. _"Surely je n'en suis pas l ,"_ she said to herself, "that I let it make me uncomfortable that a Mr. Robert Acton shouldn't honor me with a visit!" Yet she was vexed that he had not come; and she was vexed at her vexation. Her brother, at least, came in, stamping in the hall and shaking the wet from his coat. In a moment he entered the room, with a glow in his cheek and half-a-dozen rain-drops glistening on his moustache. "Ah, you have a fire," he said. _"Les beaux jours sont pass s,"_ replied the Baroness. "Never, never! They have only begun," Felix declared, planting himself before the hearth. He turned his back to the fire, placed his hands behind him, extended his legs and looked away through the window with an expression of face which seemed to denote the perception of rose-color even in the tints of a wet Sunday. His sister, from her chair, looked up at him, watching him; and what she saw in his face was not grateful to her present mood. She was puzzled by many things, but her brother's disposition was a frequent source of wonder to her. I say frequent and not constant, for there were long periods during which she gave her attention to other problems. Sometimes she had said to herself that his happy temper, his eternal gaiety, was an affectation, a _pose_; but she was vaguely conscious that during the present summer he had been a highly successful comedian. They had never yet had an explanation; she had not known the need of one. Felix was presumably following the bent of his disinterested genius, and she felt that she had no advice to give him that he would understand. With this, there was always a certain element of comfort about Felix--the assurance that he would not interfere. He was very delicate, this pure-minded Felix; in effect, he was her brother, and Madame M nster felt that there was a great propriety, every way, in that. It is true that Felix was delicate; he was not fond of explanations with his sister; this was one of the very few things in the world about which he was uncomfortable. But now he was not thinking of anything uncomfortable. "Dear brother," said Eugenia at last, "do stop making _les yeux doux_ at the rain." "With pleasure. I will make them at you!" answered Felix. "How much longer," asked Eugenia, in a moment, "do you propose to remain in this lovely spot?" Felix stared. "Do you want to go away--already?" "'Already' is delicious. I am not so happy as you." Felix dropped into a chair, looking at the fire. "The fact is I _am_ happy," he said in his light, clear tone. "And do you propose to spend your life in making love to Gertrude Wentworth?" "Yes!" said Felix, smiling sidewise at his sister. The Baroness returned his glance, much more gravely; and then, "Do you like her?" she asked. "Don't you?" Felix demanded. The Baroness was silent a moment. "I will answer you in the words of the gentleman who was asked if he liked music: _'Je ne la crains pas!'_" "She admires you immensely," said Felix. "I don't care for that. Other women should not admire one." "They should dislike you?" Again Madame M nster hesitated. "They should hate me! It's a measure of the time I have been losing here that they don't." "No time is lost in which one has been happy!" said Felix, with a bright sententiousness which may well have been a little irritating. "And in which," rejoined his sister, with a harsher laugh, "one has secured the affections of a young lady with a fortune!" Felix explained, very candidly and seriously. "I have secured Gertrude's affection, but I am by no means sure that I have secured her fortune. That may come--or it may not." "Ah, well, it _may!_ That's the great point." "It depends upon her father. He doesn't smile upon our union. You know he wants her to marry Mr. Brand." "I know nothing about it!" cried the Baroness. "Please to put on a log." Felix complied with her request and sat watching the quickening of the flame. Presently his sister added, "And you propose to elope with mademoiselle?" "By no means. I don't wish to do anything that's disagreeable to Mr. Wentworth. He has been far too kind to us." "But you must choose between pleasing yourself and pleasing him." "I want to please everyone!" exclaimed Felix, joyously. "I have a good conscience. I made up my mind at the outset that it was not my place to make love to Gertrude." "So, to simplify matters, she made love to you!" Felix looked at his sister with sudden gravity. "You say you are not afraid of her," he said. "But perhaps you ought to be--a little. She's a very clever person." "I begin to see it!" cried the Baroness. Her brother, making no rejoinder, leaned back in his chair, and there was a long silence. At last, with an altered accent, Madame M nster put another question. "You expect, at any rate, to marry?" "I shall be greatly disappointed if we don't." "A disappointment or two will do you good!" the Baroness declared. "And, afterwards, do you mean to turn American?" "It seems to me I am a very good American already. But we shall go to Europe. Gertrude wants extremely to see the world." "Ah, like me, when I came here!" said the Baroness, with a little laugh. "No, not like you," Felix rejoined, looking at his sister with a certain gentle seriousness. While he looked at her she rose from her chair, and he also got up. "Gertrude is not at all like you," he went on; "but in her own way she is almost as clever." He paused a moment; his soul was full of an agreeable feeling and of a lively disposition to express it. His sister, to his spiritual vision, was always like the lunar disk when only a part of it is lighted. The shadow on this bright surface seemed to him to expand and to contract; but whatever its proportions, he always appreciated the moonlight. He looked at the Baroness, and then he kissed her. "I am very much in | romantic | How many times the word 'romantic' appears in the text? | 3 |
us," said Acton. "That's what we must keep hold of!" He was too impatient to see Madame M nster again to wonder what Mr. Wentworth was talking about. Nevertheless, after he had passed out of the house and traversed the garden and the little piece of road that separated him from Eugenia's provisional residence, he stopped a moment outside. He stood in her little garden; the long window of her parlor was open, and he could see the white curtains, with the lamp-light shining through them, swaying softly to and fro in the warm night wind. There was a sort of excitement in the idea of seeing Madame M nster again; he became aware that his heart was beating rather faster than usual. It was this that made him stop, with a half-amused surprise. But in a moment he went along the piazza, and, approaching the open window, tapped upon its lintel with his stick. He could see the Baroness within; she was standing in the middle of the room. She came to the window and pulled aside the curtain; then she stood looking at him a moment. She was not smiling; she seemed serious. _"Mais entrez donc!"_ she said at last. Acton passed in across the window-sill; he wondered, for an instant, what was the matter with her. But the next moment she had begun to smile and had put out her hand. "Better late than never," she said. "It is very kind of you to come at this hour." "I have just returned from my journey," said Acton. "Ah, very kind, very kind," she repeated, looking about her where to sit. "I went first to the other house," Acton continued. "I expected to find you there." She had sunk into her usual chair; but she got up again, and began to move about the room. Acton had laid down his hat and stick; he was looking at her, conscious that there was in fact a great charm in seeing her again. "I don't know whether I ought to tell you to sit down," she said. "It is too late to begin a visit." "It's too early to end one," Acton declared; "and we needn't mind the beginning." She looked at him again, and, after a moment, dropped once more into her low chair, while he took a place near her. "We are in the middle, then?" she asked. "Was that where we were when you went away? No, I haven't been to the other house." "Not yesterday, nor the day before, eh?" "I don't know how many days it is." "You are tired of it," said Acton. She leaned back in her chair; her arms were folded. "That is a terrible accusation, but I have not the courage to defend myself." "I am not attacking you," said Acton. "I expected something of this kind." "It's a proof of extreme intelligence. I hope you enjoyed your journey." "Not at all," Acton declared. "I would much rather have been here with you." "Now you _are_ attacking me," said the Baroness. "You are contrasting my inconstancy with your own fidelity." "I confess I never get tired of people I like." "Ah, you are not a poor wicked foreign woman, with irritable nerves and a sophisticated mind!" "Something has happened to you since I went away," said Acton, changing his place. "Your going away--that is what has happened to me." "Do you mean to say that you have missed me?" he asked. "If I had meant to say it, it would not be worth your making a note of. I am very dishonest and my compliments are worthless." Acton was silent for some moments. "You have broken down," he said at last. Madame M nster left her chair, and began to move about. "Only for a moment. I shall pull myself together again." "You had better not take it too hard. If you are bored, you needn't be afraid to say so--to me at least." "You shouldn't say such things as that," the Baroness answered. "You should encourage me." "I admire your patience; that is encouraging." "You shouldn't even say that. When you talk of my patience you are disloyal to your own people. Patience implies suffering; and what have I had to suffer?" "Oh, not hunger, not unkindness, certainly," said Acton, laughing. "Nevertheless, we all admire your patience." "You all detest me!" cried the Baroness, with a sudden vehemence, turning her back toward him. "You make it hard," said Acton, getting up, "for a man to say something tender to you." This evening there was something particularly striking and touching about her; an unwonted softness and a look of suppressed emotion. He felt himself suddenly appreciating the fact that she had behaved very well. She had come to this quiet corner of the world under the weight of a cruel indignity, and she had been so gracefully, modestly thankful for the rest she found there. She had joined that simple circle over the way; she had mingled in its plain, provincial talk; she had shared its meagre and savorless pleasures. She had set herself a task, and she had rigidly performed it. She had conformed to the angular conditions of New England life, and she had had the tact and pluck to carry it off as if she liked them. Acton felt a more downright need than he had ever felt before to tell her that he admired her and that she struck him as a very superior woman. All along, hitherto, he had been on his guard with her; he had been cautious, observant, suspicious. But now a certain light tumult in his blood seemed to tell him that a finer degree of confidence in this charming woman would be its own reward. "We don't detest you," he went on. "I don't know what you mean. At any rate, I speak for myself; I don't know anything about the others. Very likely, you detest them for the dull life they make you lead. Really, it would give me a sort of pleasure to hear you say so." Eugenia had been looking at the door on the other side of the room; now she slowly turned her eyes toward Robert Acton. "What can be the motive," she asked, "of a man like you--an honest man, a _galant homme_--in saying so base a thing as that?" "Does it sound very base?" asked Acton, candidly. "I suppose it does, and I thank you for telling me so. Of course, I don't mean it literally." The Baroness stood looking at him. "How do you mean it?" she asked. This question was difficult to answer, and Acton, feeling the least bit foolish, walked to the open window and looked out. He stood there, thinking a moment, and then he turned back. "You know that document that you were to send to Germany," he said. "You called it your 'renunciation.' Did you ever send it?" Madame M nster's eyes expanded; she looked very grave. "What a singular answer to my question!" "Oh, it isn't an answer," said Acton. "I have wished to ask you, many times. I thought it probable you would tell me yourself. The question, on my part, seems abrupt now; but it would be abrupt at any time." The Baroness was silent a moment; and then, "I think I have told you too much!" she said. This declaration appeared to Acton to have a certain force; he had indeed a sense of asking more of her than he offered her. He returned to the window, and watched, for a moment, a little star that twinkled through the lattice of the piazza. There were at any rate offers enough he could make; perhaps he had hitherto not been sufficiently explicit in doing so. "I wish you would ask something of me," he presently said. "Is there nothing I can do for you? If you can't stand this dull life any more, let me amuse you!" The Baroness had sunk once more into a chair, and she had taken up a fan which she held, with both hands, to her mouth. Over the top of the fan her eyes were fixed on him. "You are very strange tonight," she said, with a little laugh. "I will do anything in the world," he rejoined, standing in front of her. "Shouldn't you like to travel about and see something of the country? Won't you go to Niagara? You ought to see Niagara, you know." "With you, do you mean?" "I should be delighted to take you." "You alone?" Acton looked at her, smiling, and yet with a serious air. "Well, yes; we might go alone," he said. "If you were not what you are," she answered, "I should feel insulted." "How do you mean--what I am?" "If you were one of the gentlemen I have been used to all my life. If you were not a queer Bostonian." "If the gentlemen you have been used to have taught you to expect insults," said Acton, "I am glad I am what I am. You had much better come to Niagara." "If you wish to 'amuse' me," the Baroness declared, "you need go to no further expense. You amuse me very effectually." He sat down opposite to her; she still held her fan up to her face, with her eyes only showing above it. There was a moment's silence, and then he said, returning to his former question, "Have you sent that document to Germany?" Again there was a moment's silence. The expressive eyes of Madame M nster seemed, however, half to break it. "I will tell you--at Niagara!" she said. She had hardly spoken when the door at the further end of the room opened--the door upon which, some minutes previous, Eugenia had fixed her gaze. Clifford Wentworth stood there, blushing and looking rather awkward. The Baroness rose, quickly, and Acton, more slowly, did the same. Clifford gave him no greeting; he was looking at Eugenia. "Ah, you were here?" exclaimed Acton. "He was in Felix's studio," said Madame M nster. "He wanted to see his sketches." Clifford looked at Robert Acton, but said nothing; he only fanned himself with his hat. "You chose a bad moment," said Acton; "you hadn't much light." "I hadn't any!" said Clifford, laughing. "Your candle went out?" Eugenia asked. "You should have come back here and lighted it again." Clifford looked at her a moment. "So I have--come back. But I have left the candle!" Eugenia turned away. "You are very stupid, my poor boy. You had better go home." "Well," said Clifford, "good-night!" "Haven't you a word to throw to a man when he has safely returned from a dangerous journey?" Acton asked. "How do you do?" said Clifford. "I thought--I thought you were----" and he paused, looking at the Baroness again. "You thought I was at Newport, eh? So I was--this morning." "Good-night, clever child!" said Madame M nster, over her shoulder. Clifford stared at her--not at all like a clever child; and then, with one of his little facetious growls, took his departure. "What is the matter with him?" asked Acton, when he was gone. "He seemed rather in a muddle." Eugenia, who was near the window, glanced out, listening a moment. "The matter--the matter"--she answered. "But you don't say such things here." "If you mean that he had been drinking a little, you can say that." "He doesn't drink any more. I have cured him. And in return--he's in love with me." It was Acton's turn to stare. He instantly thought of his sister; but he said nothing about her. He began to laugh. "I don't wonder at his passion! But I wonder at his forsaking your society for that of your brother's paint-brushes." Eugenia was silent a little. "He had not been in the studio. I invented that at the moment." "Invented it? For what purpose?" "He has an idea of being romantic. He has adopted the habit of coming to see me at midnight--passing only through the orchard and through Felix's painting-room, which has a door opening that way. It seems to amuse him," added Eugenia, with a little laugh. Acton felt more surprise than he confessed to, for this was a new view of Clifford, whose irregularities had hitherto been quite without the romantic element. He tried to laugh again, but he felt rather too serious, and after a moment's hesitation his seriousness explained itself. "I hope you don't encourage him," he said. "He must not be inconstant to poor Lizzie." "To your sister?" "You know they are decidedly intimate," said Acton. "Ah," cried Eugenia, smiling, "has she--has she----" "I don't know," Acton interrupted, "what she has. But I always supposed that Clifford had a desire to make himself agreeable to her." "Ah, _par exemple!_" the Baroness went on. "The little monster! The next time he becomes sentimental I will him tell that he ought to be ashamed of himself." Acton was silent a moment. "You had better say nothing about it." "I had told him as much already, on general grounds," said the Baroness. "But in this country, you know, the relations of young people are so extraordinary that one is quite at sea. They are not engaged when you would quite say they ought to be. Take Charlotte Wentworth, for instance, and that young ecclesiastic. If I were her father I should insist upon his marrying her; but it appears to be thought there is no urgency. On the other hand, you suddenly learn that a boy of twenty and a little girl who is still with her governess--your sister has no governess? Well, then, who is never away from her mamma--a young couple, in short, between whom you have noticed nothing beyond an exchange of the childish pleasantries characteristic of their age, are on the point of setting up as man and wife." The Baroness spoke with a certain exaggerated volubility which was in contrast with the languid grace that had characterized her manner before Clifford made his appearance. It seemed to Acton that there was a spark of irritation in her eye--a note of irony (as when she spoke of Lizzie being never away from her mother) in her voice. If Madame M nster was irritated, Robert Acton was vaguely mystified; she began to move about the room again, and he looked at her without saying anything. Presently she took out her watch, and, glancing at it, declared that it was three o'clock in the morning and that he must go. "I have not been here an hour," he said, "and they are still sitting up at the other house. You can see the lights. Your brother has not come in." "Oh, at the other house," cried Eugenia, "they are terrible people! I don't know what they may do over there. I am a quiet little humdrum woman; I have rigid rules and I keep them. One of them is not to have visitors in the small hours--especially clever men like you. So good-night!" Decidedly, the Baroness was incisive; and though Acton bade her good-night and departed, he was still a good deal mystified. The next day Clifford Wentworth came to see Lizzie, and Acton, who was at home and saw him pass through the garden, took note of the circumstance. He had a natural desire to make it tally with Madame M nster's account of Clifford's disaffection; but his ingenuity, finding itself unequal to the task, resolved at last to ask help of the young man's candor. He waited till he saw him going away, and then he went out and overtook him in the grounds. "I wish very much you would answer me a question," Acton said. "What were you doing, last night, at Madame M nster's?" Clifford began to laugh and to blush, by no means like a young man with a romantic secret. "What did she tell you?" he asked. "That is exactly what I don't want to say." "Well, I want to tell you the same," said Clifford; "and unless I know it perhaps I can't." They had stopped in a garden path; Acton looked hard at his rosy young kinsman. "She said she couldn't fancy what had got into you; you appeared to have taken a violent dislike to her." Clifford stared, looking a little alarmed. "Oh, come," he growled, "you don't mean that!" "And that when--for common civility's sake--you came occasionally to the house you left her alone and spent your time in Felix's studio, under pretext of looking at his sketches." "Oh, come!" growled Clifford, again. "Did you ever know me to tell an untruth?" "Yes, lots of them!" said Clifford, seeing an opening, out of the discussion, for his sarcastic powers. "Well," he presently added, "I thought you were my father." "You knew someone was there?" "We heard you coming in." Acton meditated. "You had been with the Baroness, then?" "I was in the parlor. We heard your step outside. I thought it was my father." "And on that," asked Acton, "you ran away?" "She told me to go--to go out by the studio." Acton meditated more intensely; if there had been a chair at hand he would have sat down. "Why should she wish you not to meet your father?" "Well," said Clifford, "father doesn't like to see me there." Acton looked askance at his companion and forbore to make any comment upon this assertion. "Has he said so," he asked, "to the Baroness?" "Well, I hope not," said Clifford. "He hasn't said so--in so many words--to me. But I know it worries him; and I want to stop worrying him. The Baroness knows it, and she wants me to stop, too." "To stop coming to see her?" "I don't know about that; but to stop worrying father. Eugenia knows everything," Clifford added, with an air of knowingness of his own. "Ah," said Acton, interrogatively, "Eugenia knows everything?" "She knew it was not father coming in." "Then why did you go?" Clifford blushed and laughed afresh. "Well, I was afraid it was. And besides, she told me to go, at any rate." "Did she think it was I?" Acton asked. "She didn't say so." Again Robert Acton reflected. "But you didn't go," he presently said; "you came back." "I couldn't get out of the studio," Clifford rejoined. "The door was locked, and Felix has nailed some planks across the lower half of the confounded windows to make the light come in from above. So they were no use. I waited there a good while, and then, suddenly, I felt ashamed. I didn't want to be hiding away from my own father. I couldn't stand it any longer. I bolted out, and when I found it was you I was a little flurried. But Eugenia carried it off, didn't she?" Clifford added, in the tone of a young humorist whose perception had not been permanently clouded by the sense of his own discomfort. "Beautifully!" said Acton. "Especially," he continued, "when one remembers that you were very imprudent and that she must have been a good deal annoyed." "Oh," cried Clifford, with the indifference of a young man who feels that however he may have failed of felicity in behavior he is extremely just in his impressions, "Eugenia doesn't care for anything!" Acton hesitated a moment. "Thank you for telling me this," he said at last. And then, laying his hand on Clifford's shoulder, he added, "Tell me one thing more: are you by chance a little in love with the Baroness?" "No, sir!" said Clifford, almost shaking off his hand. CHAPTER X The first sunday that followed Robert Acton's return from Newport witnessed a change in the brilliant weather that had long prevailed. The rain began to fall and the day was cold and dreary. Mr. Wentworth and his daughters put on overshoes and went to church, and Felix Young, without overshoes, went also, holding an umbrella over Gertrude. It is to be feared that, in the whole observance, this was the privilege he most highly valued. The Baroness remained at home; she was in neither a cheerful nor a devotional mood. She had, however, never been, during her residence in the United States, what is called a regular attendant at divine service; and on this particular Sunday morning of which I began with speaking she stood at the window of her little drawing-room, watching the long arm of a rose tree that was attached to her piazza, but a portion of which had disengaged itself, sway to and fro, shake and gesticulate, against the dusky drizzle of the sky. Every now and then, in a gust of wind, the rose tree scattered a shower of water-drops against the window-pane; it appeared to have a kind of human movement--a menacing, warning intention. The room was very cold; Madame M nster put on a shawl and walked about. Then she determined to have some fire; and summoning her ancient negress, the contrast of whose polished ebony and whose crimson turban had been at first a source of satisfaction to her, she made arrangements for the production of a crackling flame. This old woman's name was Azarina. The Baroness had begun by thinking that there would be a savory wildness in her talk, and, for amusement, she had encouraged her to chatter. But Azarina was dry and prim; her conversation was anything but African; she reminded Eugenia of the tiresome old ladies she met in society. She knew, however, how to make a fire; so that after she had laid the logs, Eugenia, who was terribly bored, found a quarter of an hour's entertainment in sitting and watching them blaze and sputter. She had thought it very likely Robert Acton would come and see her; she had not met him since that infelicitous evening. But the morning waned without his coming; several times she thought she heard his step on the piazza; but it was only a window-shutter shaking in a rain-gust. The Baroness, since the beginning of that episode in her career of which a slight sketch has been attempted in these pages, had had many moments of irritation. But today her irritation had a peculiar keenness; it appeared to feed upon itself. It urged her to do something; but it suggested no particularly profitable line of action. If she could have done something at the moment, on the spot, she would have stepped upon a European steamer and turned her back, with a kind of rapture, upon that profoundly mortifying failure, her visit to her American relations. It is not exactly apparent why she should have termed this enterprise a failure, inasmuch as she had been treated with the highest distinction for which allowance had been made in American institutions. Her irritation came, at bottom, from the sense, which, always present, had suddenly grown acute, that the social soil on this big, vague continent was somehow not adapted for growing those plants whose fragrance she especially inclined to inhale and by which she liked to see herself surrounded--a species of vegetation for which she carried a collection of seedlings, as we may say, in her pocket. She found her chief happiness in the sense of exerting a certain power and making a certain impression; and now she felt the annoyance of a rather wearied swimmer who, on nearing shore, to land, finds a smooth straight wall of rock when he had counted upon a clean firm beach. Her power, in the American air, seemed to have lost its prehensile attributes; the smooth wall of rock was insurmountable. _"Surely je n'en suis pas l ,"_ she said to herself, "that I let it make me uncomfortable that a Mr. Robert Acton shouldn't honor me with a visit!" Yet she was vexed that he had not come; and she was vexed at her vexation. Her brother, at least, came in, stamping in the hall and shaking the wet from his coat. In a moment he entered the room, with a glow in his cheek and half-a-dozen rain-drops glistening on his moustache. "Ah, you have a fire," he said. _"Les beaux jours sont pass s,"_ replied the Baroness. "Never, never! They have only begun," Felix declared, planting himself before the hearth. He turned his back to the fire, placed his hands behind him, extended his legs and looked away through the window with an expression of face which seemed to denote the perception of rose-color even in the tints of a wet Sunday. His sister, from her chair, looked up at him, watching him; and what she saw in his face was not grateful to her present mood. She was puzzled by many things, but her brother's disposition was a frequent source of wonder to her. I say frequent and not constant, for there were long periods during which she gave her attention to other problems. Sometimes she had said to herself that his happy temper, his eternal gaiety, was an affectation, a _pose_; but she was vaguely conscious that during the present summer he had been a highly successful comedian. They had never yet had an explanation; she had not known the need of one. Felix was presumably following the bent of his disinterested genius, and she felt that she had no advice to give him that he would understand. With this, there was always a certain element of comfort about Felix--the assurance that he would not interfere. He was very delicate, this pure-minded Felix; in effect, he was her brother, and Madame M nster felt that there was a great propriety, every way, in that. It is true that Felix was delicate; he was not fond of explanations with his sister; this was one of the very few things in the world about which he was uncomfortable. But now he was not thinking of anything uncomfortable. "Dear brother," said Eugenia at last, "do stop making _les yeux doux_ at the rain." "With pleasure. I will make them at you!" answered Felix. "How much longer," asked Eugenia, in a moment, "do you propose to remain in this lovely spot?" Felix stared. "Do you want to go away--already?" "'Already' is delicious. I am not so happy as you." Felix dropped into a chair, looking at the fire. "The fact is I _am_ happy," he said in his light, clear tone. "And do you propose to spend your life in making love to Gertrude Wentworth?" "Yes!" said Felix, smiling sidewise at his sister. The Baroness returned his glance, much more gravely; and then, "Do you like her?" she asked. "Don't you?" Felix demanded. The Baroness was silent a moment. "I will answer you in the words of the gentleman who was asked if he liked music: _'Je ne la crains pas!'_" "She admires you immensely," said Felix. "I don't care for that. Other women should not admire one." "They should dislike you?" Again Madame M nster hesitated. "They should hate me! It's a measure of the time I have been losing here that they don't." "No time is lost in which one has been happy!" said Felix, with a bright sententiousness which may well have been a little irritating. "And in which," rejoined his sister, with a harsher laugh, "one has secured the affections of a young lady with a fortune!" Felix explained, very candidly and seriously. "I have secured Gertrude's affection, but I am by no means sure that I have secured her fortune. That may come--or it may not." "Ah, well, it _may!_ That's the great point." "It depends upon her father. He doesn't smile upon our union. You know he wants her to marry Mr. Brand." "I know nothing about it!" cried the Baroness. "Please to put on a log." Felix complied with her request and sat watching the quickening of the flame. Presently his sister added, "And you propose to elope with mademoiselle?" "By no means. I don't wish to do anything that's disagreeable to Mr. Wentworth. He has been far too kind to us." "But you must choose between pleasing yourself and pleasing him." "I want to please everyone!" exclaimed Felix, joyously. "I have a good conscience. I made up my mind at the outset that it was not my place to make love to Gertrude." "So, to simplify matters, she made love to you!" Felix looked at his sister with sudden gravity. "You say you are not afraid of her," he said. "But perhaps you ought to be--a little. She's a very clever person." "I begin to see it!" cried the Baroness. Her brother, making no rejoinder, leaned back in his chair, and there was a long silence. At last, with an altered accent, Madame M nster put another question. "You expect, at any rate, to marry?" "I shall be greatly disappointed if we don't." "A disappointment or two will do you good!" the Baroness declared. "And, afterwards, do you mean to turn American?" "It seems to me I am a very good American already. But we shall go to Europe. Gertrude wants extremely to see the world." "Ah, like me, when I came here!" said the Baroness, with a little laugh. "No, not like you," Felix rejoined, looking at his sister with a certain gentle seriousness. While he looked at her she rose from her chair, and he also got up. "Gertrude is not at all like you," he went on; "but in her own way she is almost as clever." He paused a moment; his soul was full of an agreeable feeling and of a lively disposition to express it. His sister, to his spiritual vision, was always like the lunar disk when only a part of it is lighted. The shadow on this bright surface seemed to him to expand and to contract; but whatever its proportions, he always appreciated the moonlight. He looked at the Baroness, and then he kissed her. "I am very much in | declared | How many times the word 'declared' appears in the text? | 2 |
us," said Acton. "That's what we must keep hold of!" He was too impatient to see Madame M nster again to wonder what Mr. Wentworth was talking about. Nevertheless, after he had passed out of the house and traversed the garden and the little piece of road that separated him from Eugenia's provisional residence, he stopped a moment outside. He stood in her little garden; the long window of her parlor was open, and he could see the white curtains, with the lamp-light shining through them, swaying softly to and fro in the warm night wind. There was a sort of excitement in the idea of seeing Madame M nster again; he became aware that his heart was beating rather faster than usual. It was this that made him stop, with a half-amused surprise. But in a moment he went along the piazza, and, approaching the open window, tapped upon its lintel with his stick. He could see the Baroness within; she was standing in the middle of the room. She came to the window and pulled aside the curtain; then she stood looking at him a moment. She was not smiling; she seemed serious. _"Mais entrez donc!"_ she said at last. Acton passed in across the window-sill; he wondered, for an instant, what was the matter with her. But the next moment she had begun to smile and had put out her hand. "Better late than never," she said. "It is very kind of you to come at this hour." "I have just returned from my journey," said Acton. "Ah, very kind, very kind," she repeated, looking about her where to sit. "I went first to the other house," Acton continued. "I expected to find you there." She had sunk into her usual chair; but she got up again, and began to move about the room. Acton had laid down his hat and stick; he was looking at her, conscious that there was in fact a great charm in seeing her again. "I don't know whether I ought to tell you to sit down," she said. "It is too late to begin a visit." "It's too early to end one," Acton declared; "and we needn't mind the beginning." She looked at him again, and, after a moment, dropped once more into her low chair, while he took a place near her. "We are in the middle, then?" she asked. "Was that where we were when you went away? No, I haven't been to the other house." "Not yesterday, nor the day before, eh?" "I don't know how many days it is." "You are tired of it," said Acton. She leaned back in her chair; her arms were folded. "That is a terrible accusation, but I have not the courage to defend myself." "I am not attacking you," said Acton. "I expected something of this kind." "It's a proof of extreme intelligence. I hope you enjoyed your journey." "Not at all," Acton declared. "I would much rather have been here with you." "Now you _are_ attacking me," said the Baroness. "You are contrasting my inconstancy with your own fidelity." "I confess I never get tired of people I like." "Ah, you are not a poor wicked foreign woman, with irritable nerves and a sophisticated mind!" "Something has happened to you since I went away," said Acton, changing his place. "Your going away--that is what has happened to me." "Do you mean to say that you have missed me?" he asked. "If I had meant to say it, it would not be worth your making a note of. I am very dishonest and my compliments are worthless." Acton was silent for some moments. "You have broken down," he said at last. Madame M nster left her chair, and began to move about. "Only for a moment. I shall pull myself together again." "You had better not take it too hard. If you are bored, you needn't be afraid to say so--to me at least." "You shouldn't say such things as that," the Baroness answered. "You should encourage me." "I admire your patience; that is encouraging." "You shouldn't even say that. When you talk of my patience you are disloyal to your own people. Patience implies suffering; and what have I had to suffer?" "Oh, not hunger, not unkindness, certainly," said Acton, laughing. "Nevertheless, we all admire your patience." "You all detest me!" cried the Baroness, with a sudden vehemence, turning her back toward him. "You make it hard," said Acton, getting up, "for a man to say something tender to you." This evening there was something particularly striking and touching about her; an unwonted softness and a look of suppressed emotion. He felt himself suddenly appreciating the fact that she had behaved very well. She had come to this quiet corner of the world under the weight of a cruel indignity, and she had been so gracefully, modestly thankful for the rest she found there. She had joined that simple circle over the way; she had mingled in its plain, provincial talk; she had shared its meagre and savorless pleasures. She had set herself a task, and she had rigidly performed it. She had conformed to the angular conditions of New England life, and she had had the tact and pluck to carry it off as if she liked them. Acton felt a more downright need than he had ever felt before to tell her that he admired her and that she struck him as a very superior woman. All along, hitherto, he had been on his guard with her; he had been cautious, observant, suspicious. But now a certain light tumult in his blood seemed to tell him that a finer degree of confidence in this charming woman would be its own reward. "We don't detest you," he went on. "I don't know what you mean. At any rate, I speak for myself; I don't know anything about the others. Very likely, you detest them for the dull life they make you lead. Really, it would give me a sort of pleasure to hear you say so." Eugenia had been looking at the door on the other side of the room; now she slowly turned her eyes toward Robert Acton. "What can be the motive," she asked, "of a man like you--an honest man, a _galant homme_--in saying so base a thing as that?" "Does it sound very base?" asked Acton, candidly. "I suppose it does, and I thank you for telling me so. Of course, I don't mean it literally." The Baroness stood looking at him. "How do you mean it?" she asked. This question was difficult to answer, and Acton, feeling the least bit foolish, walked to the open window and looked out. He stood there, thinking a moment, and then he turned back. "You know that document that you were to send to Germany," he said. "You called it your 'renunciation.' Did you ever send it?" Madame M nster's eyes expanded; she looked very grave. "What a singular answer to my question!" "Oh, it isn't an answer," said Acton. "I have wished to ask you, many times. I thought it probable you would tell me yourself. The question, on my part, seems abrupt now; but it would be abrupt at any time." The Baroness was silent a moment; and then, "I think I have told you too much!" she said. This declaration appeared to Acton to have a certain force; he had indeed a sense of asking more of her than he offered her. He returned to the window, and watched, for a moment, a little star that twinkled through the lattice of the piazza. There were at any rate offers enough he could make; perhaps he had hitherto not been sufficiently explicit in doing so. "I wish you would ask something of me," he presently said. "Is there nothing I can do for you? If you can't stand this dull life any more, let me amuse you!" The Baroness had sunk once more into a chair, and she had taken up a fan which she held, with both hands, to her mouth. Over the top of the fan her eyes were fixed on him. "You are very strange tonight," she said, with a little laugh. "I will do anything in the world," he rejoined, standing in front of her. "Shouldn't you like to travel about and see something of the country? Won't you go to Niagara? You ought to see Niagara, you know." "With you, do you mean?" "I should be delighted to take you." "You alone?" Acton looked at her, smiling, and yet with a serious air. "Well, yes; we might go alone," he said. "If you were not what you are," she answered, "I should feel insulted." "How do you mean--what I am?" "If you were one of the gentlemen I have been used to all my life. If you were not a queer Bostonian." "If the gentlemen you have been used to have taught you to expect insults," said Acton, "I am glad I am what I am. You had much better come to Niagara." "If you wish to 'amuse' me," the Baroness declared, "you need go to no further expense. You amuse me very effectually." He sat down opposite to her; she still held her fan up to her face, with her eyes only showing above it. There was a moment's silence, and then he said, returning to his former question, "Have you sent that document to Germany?" Again there was a moment's silence. The expressive eyes of Madame M nster seemed, however, half to break it. "I will tell you--at Niagara!" she said. She had hardly spoken when the door at the further end of the room opened--the door upon which, some minutes previous, Eugenia had fixed her gaze. Clifford Wentworth stood there, blushing and looking rather awkward. The Baroness rose, quickly, and Acton, more slowly, did the same. Clifford gave him no greeting; he was looking at Eugenia. "Ah, you were here?" exclaimed Acton. "He was in Felix's studio," said Madame M nster. "He wanted to see his sketches." Clifford looked at Robert Acton, but said nothing; he only fanned himself with his hat. "You chose a bad moment," said Acton; "you hadn't much light." "I hadn't any!" said Clifford, laughing. "Your candle went out?" Eugenia asked. "You should have come back here and lighted it again." Clifford looked at her a moment. "So I have--come back. But I have left the candle!" Eugenia turned away. "You are very stupid, my poor boy. You had better go home." "Well," said Clifford, "good-night!" "Haven't you a word to throw to a man when he has safely returned from a dangerous journey?" Acton asked. "How do you do?" said Clifford. "I thought--I thought you were----" and he paused, looking at the Baroness again. "You thought I was at Newport, eh? So I was--this morning." "Good-night, clever child!" said Madame M nster, over her shoulder. Clifford stared at her--not at all like a clever child; and then, with one of his little facetious growls, took his departure. "What is the matter with him?" asked Acton, when he was gone. "He seemed rather in a muddle." Eugenia, who was near the window, glanced out, listening a moment. "The matter--the matter"--she answered. "But you don't say such things here." "If you mean that he had been drinking a little, you can say that." "He doesn't drink any more. I have cured him. And in return--he's in love with me." It was Acton's turn to stare. He instantly thought of his sister; but he said nothing about her. He began to laugh. "I don't wonder at his passion! But I wonder at his forsaking your society for that of your brother's paint-brushes." Eugenia was silent a little. "He had not been in the studio. I invented that at the moment." "Invented it? For what purpose?" "He has an idea of being romantic. He has adopted the habit of coming to see me at midnight--passing only through the orchard and through Felix's painting-room, which has a door opening that way. It seems to amuse him," added Eugenia, with a little laugh. Acton felt more surprise than he confessed to, for this was a new view of Clifford, whose irregularities had hitherto been quite without the romantic element. He tried to laugh again, but he felt rather too serious, and after a moment's hesitation his seriousness explained itself. "I hope you don't encourage him," he said. "He must not be inconstant to poor Lizzie." "To your sister?" "You know they are decidedly intimate," said Acton. "Ah," cried Eugenia, smiling, "has she--has she----" "I don't know," Acton interrupted, "what she has. But I always supposed that Clifford had a desire to make himself agreeable to her." "Ah, _par exemple!_" the Baroness went on. "The little monster! The next time he becomes sentimental I will him tell that he ought to be ashamed of himself." Acton was silent a moment. "You had better say nothing about it." "I had told him as much already, on general grounds," said the Baroness. "But in this country, you know, the relations of young people are so extraordinary that one is quite at sea. They are not engaged when you would quite say they ought to be. Take Charlotte Wentworth, for instance, and that young ecclesiastic. If I were her father I should insist upon his marrying her; but it appears to be thought there is no urgency. On the other hand, you suddenly learn that a boy of twenty and a little girl who is still with her governess--your sister has no governess? Well, then, who is never away from her mamma--a young couple, in short, between whom you have noticed nothing beyond an exchange of the childish pleasantries characteristic of their age, are on the point of setting up as man and wife." The Baroness spoke with a certain exaggerated volubility which was in contrast with the languid grace that had characterized her manner before Clifford made his appearance. It seemed to Acton that there was a spark of irritation in her eye--a note of irony (as when she spoke of Lizzie being never away from her mother) in her voice. If Madame M nster was irritated, Robert Acton was vaguely mystified; she began to move about the room again, and he looked at her without saying anything. Presently she took out her watch, and, glancing at it, declared that it was three o'clock in the morning and that he must go. "I have not been here an hour," he said, "and they are still sitting up at the other house. You can see the lights. Your brother has not come in." "Oh, at the other house," cried Eugenia, "they are terrible people! I don't know what they may do over there. I am a quiet little humdrum woman; I have rigid rules and I keep them. One of them is not to have visitors in the small hours--especially clever men like you. So good-night!" Decidedly, the Baroness was incisive; and though Acton bade her good-night and departed, he was still a good deal mystified. The next day Clifford Wentworth came to see Lizzie, and Acton, who was at home and saw him pass through the garden, took note of the circumstance. He had a natural desire to make it tally with Madame M nster's account of Clifford's disaffection; but his ingenuity, finding itself unequal to the task, resolved at last to ask help of the young man's candor. He waited till he saw him going away, and then he went out and overtook him in the grounds. "I wish very much you would answer me a question," Acton said. "What were you doing, last night, at Madame M nster's?" Clifford began to laugh and to blush, by no means like a young man with a romantic secret. "What did she tell you?" he asked. "That is exactly what I don't want to say." "Well, I want to tell you the same," said Clifford; "and unless I know it perhaps I can't." They had stopped in a garden path; Acton looked hard at his rosy young kinsman. "She said she couldn't fancy what had got into you; you appeared to have taken a violent dislike to her." Clifford stared, looking a little alarmed. "Oh, come," he growled, "you don't mean that!" "And that when--for common civility's sake--you came occasionally to the house you left her alone and spent your time in Felix's studio, under pretext of looking at his sketches." "Oh, come!" growled Clifford, again. "Did you ever know me to tell an untruth?" "Yes, lots of them!" said Clifford, seeing an opening, out of the discussion, for his sarcastic powers. "Well," he presently added, "I thought you were my father." "You knew someone was there?" "We heard you coming in." Acton meditated. "You had been with the Baroness, then?" "I was in the parlor. We heard your step outside. I thought it was my father." "And on that," asked Acton, "you ran away?" "She told me to go--to go out by the studio." Acton meditated more intensely; if there had been a chair at hand he would have sat down. "Why should she wish you not to meet your father?" "Well," said Clifford, "father doesn't like to see me there." Acton looked askance at his companion and forbore to make any comment upon this assertion. "Has he said so," he asked, "to the Baroness?" "Well, I hope not," said Clifford. "He hasn't said so--in so many words--to me. But I know it worries him; and I want to stop worrying him. The Baroness knows it, and she wants me to stop, too." "To stop coming to see her?" "I don't know about that; but to stop worrying father. Eugenia knows everything," Clifford added, with an air of knowingness of his own. "Ah," said Acton, interrogatively, "Eugenia knows everything?" "She knew it was not father coming in." "Then why did you go?" Clifford blushed and laughed afresh. "Well, I was afraid it was. And besides, she told me to go, at any rate." "Did she think it was I?" Acton asked. "She didn't say so." Again Robert Acton reflected. "But you didn't go," he presently said; "you came back." "I couldn't get out of the studio," Clifford rejoined. "The door was locked, and Felix has nailed some planks across the lower half of the confounded windows to make the light come in from above. So they were no use. I waited there a good while, and then, suddenly, I felt ashamed. I didn't want to be hiding away from my own father. I couldn't stand it any longer. I bolted out, and when I found it was you I was a little flurried. But Eugenia carried it off, didn't she?" Clifford added, in the tone of a young humorist whose perception had not been permanently clouded by the sense of his own discomfort. "Beautifully!" said Acton. "Especially," he continued, "when one remembers that you were very imprudent and that she must have been a good deal annoyed." "Oh," cried Clifford, with the indifference of a young man who feels that however he may have failed of felicity in behavior he is extremely just in his impressions, "Eugenia doesn't care for anything!" Acton hesitated a moment. "Thank you for telling me this," he said at last. And then, laying his hand on Clifford's shoulder, he added, "Tell me one thing more: are you by chance a little in love with the Baroness?" "No, sir!" said Clifford, almost shaking off his hand. CHAPTER X The first sunday that followed Robert Acton's return from Newport witnessed a change in the brilliant weather that had long prevailed. The rain began to fall and the day was cold and dreary. Mr. Wentworth and his daughters put on overshoes and went to church, and Felix Young, without overshoes, went also, holding an umbrella over Gertrude. It is to be feared that, in the whole observance, this was the privilege he most highly valued. The Baroness remained at home; she was in neither a cheerful nor a devotional mood. She had, however, never been, during her residence in the United States, what is called a regular attendant at divine service; and on this particular Sunday morning of which I began with speaking she stood at the window of her little drawing-room, watching the long arm of a rose tree that was attached to her piazza, but a portion of which had disengaged itself, sway to and fro, shake and gesticulate, against the dusky drizzle of the sky. Every now and then, in a gust of wind, the rose tree scattered a shower of water-drops against the window-pane; it appeared to have a kind of human movement--a menacing, warning intention. The room was very cold; Madame M nster put on a shawl and walked about. Then she determined to have some fire; and summoning her ancient negress, the contrast of whose polished ebony and whose crimson turban had been at first a source of satisfaction to her, she made arrangements for the production of a crackling flame. This old woman's name was Azarina. The Baroness had begun by thinking that there would be a savory wildness in her talk, and, for amusement, she had encouraged her to chatter. But Azarina was dry and prim; her conversation was anything but African; she reminded Eugenia of the tiresome old ladies she met in society. She knew, however, how to make a fire; so that after she had laid the logs, Eugenia, who was terribly bored, found a quarter of an hour's entertainment in sitting and watching them blaze and sputter. She had thought it very likely Robert Acton would come and see her; she had not met him since that infelicitous evening. But the morning waned without his coming; several times she thought she heard his step on the piazza; but it was only a window-shutter shaking in a rain-gust. The Baroness, since the beginning of that episode in her career of which a slight sketch has been attempted in these pages, had had many moments of irritation. But today her irritation had a peculiar keenness; it appeared to feed upon itself. It urged her to do something; but it suggested no particularly profitable line of action. If she could have done something at the moment, on the spot, she would have stepped upon a European steamer and turned her back, with a kind of rapture, upon that profoundly mortifying failure, her visit to her American relations. It is not exactly apparent why she should have termed this enterprise a failure, inasmuch as she had been treated with the highest distinction for which allowance had been made in American institutions. Her irritation came, at bottom, from the sense, which, always present, had suddenly grown acute, that the social soil on this big, vague continent was somehow not adapted for growing those plants whose fragrance she especially inclined to inhale and by which she liked to see herself surrounded--a species of vegetation for which she carried a collection of seedlings, as we may say, in her pocket. She found her chief happiness in the sense of exerting a certain power and making a certain impression; and now she felt the annoyance of a rather wearied swimmer who, on nearing shore, to land, finds a smooth straight wall of rock when he had counted upon a clean firm beach. Her power, in the American air, seemed to have lost its prehensile attributes; the smooth wall of rock was insurmountable. _"Surely je n'en suis pas l ,"_ she said to herself, "that I let it make me uncomfortable that a Mr. Robert Acton shouldn't honor me with a visit!" Yet she was vexed that he had not come; and she was vexed at her vexation. Her brother, at least, came in, stamping in the hall and shaking the wet from his coat. In a moment he entered the room, with a glow in his cheek and half-a-dozen rain-drops glistening on his moustache. "Ah, you have a fire," he said. _"Les beaux jours sont pass s,"_ replied the Baroness. "Never, never! They have only begun," Felix declared, planting himself before the hearth. He turned his back to the fire, placed his hands behind him, extended his legs and looked away through the window with an expression of face which seemed to denote the perception of rose-color even in the tints of a wet Sunday. His sister, from her chair, looked up at him, watching him; and what she saw in his face was not grateful to her present mood. She was puzzled by many things, but her brother's disposition was a frequent source of wonder to her. I say frequent and not constant, for there were long periods during which she gave her attention to other problems. Sometimes she had said to herself that his happy temper, his eternal gaiety, was an affectation, a _pose_; but she was vaguely conscious that during the present summer he had been a highly successful comedian. They had never yet had an explanation; she had not known the need of one. Felix was presumably following the bent of his disinterested genius, and she felt that she had no advice to give him that he would understand. With this, there was always a certain element of comfort about Felix--the assurance that he would not interfere. He was very delicate, this pure-minded Felix; in effect, he was her brother, and Madame M nster felt that there was a great propriety, every way, in that. It is true that Felix was delicate; he was not fond of explanations with his sister; this was one of the very few things in the world about which he was uncomfortable. But now he was not thinking of anything uncomfortable. "Dear brother," said Eugenia at last, "do stop making _les yeux doux_ at the rain." "With pleasure. I will make them at you!" answered Felix. "How much longer," asked Eugenia, in a moment, "do you propose to remain in this lovely spot?" Felix stared. "Do you want to go away--already?" "'Already' is delicious. I am not so happy as you." Felix dropped into a chair, looking at the fire. "The fact is I _am_ happy," he said in his light, clear tone. "And do you propose to spend your life in making love to Gertrude Wentworth?" "Yes!" said Felix, smiling sidewise at his sister. The Baroness returned his glance, much more gravely; and then, "Do you like her?" she asked. "Don't you?" Felix demanded. The Baroness was silent a moment. "I will answer you in the words of the gentleman who was asked if he liked music: _'Je ne la crains pas!'_" "She admires you immensely," said Felix. "I don't care for that. Other women should not admire one." "They should dislike you?" Again Madame M nster hesitated. "They should hate me! It's a measure of the time I have been losing here that they don't." "No time is lost in which one has been happy!" said Felix, with a bright sententiousness which may well have been a little irritating. "And in which," rejoined his sister, with a harsher laugh, "one has secured the affections of a young lady with a fortune!" Felix explained, very candidly and seriously. "I have secured Gertrude's affection, but I am by no means sure that I have secured her fortune. That may come--or it may not." "Ah, well, it _may!_ That's the great point." "It depends upon her father. He doesn't smile upon our union. You know he wants her to marry Mr. Brand." "I know nothing about it!" cried the Baroness. "Please to put on a log." Felix complied with her request and sat watching the quickening of the flame. Presently his sister added, "And you propose to elope with mademoiselle?" "By no means. I don't wish to do anything that's disagreeable to Mr. Wentworth. He has been far too kind to us." "But you must choose between pleasing yourself and pleasing him." "I want to please everyone!" exclaimed Felix, joyously. "I have a good conscience. I made up my mind at the outset that it was not my place to make love to Gertrude." "So, to simplify matters, she made love to you!" Felix looked at his sister with sudden gravity. "You say you are not afraid of her," he said. "But perhaps you ought to be--a little. She's a very clever person." "I begin to see it!" cried the Baroness. Her brother, making no rejoinder, leaned back in his chair, and there was a long silence. At last, with an altered accent, Madame M nster put another question. "You expect, at any rate, to marry?" "I shall be greatly disappointed if we don't." "A disappointment or two will do you good!" the Baroness declared. "And, afterwards, do you mean to turn American?" "It seems to me I am a very good American already. But we shall go to Europe. Gertrude wants extremely to see the world." "Ah, like me, when I came here!" said the Baroness, with a little laugh. "No, not like you," Felix rejoined, looking at his sister with a certain gentle seriousness. While he looked at her she rose from her chair, and he also got up. "Gertrude is not at all like you," he went on; "but in her own way she is almost as clever." He paused a moment; his soul was full of an agreeable feeling and of a lively disposition to express it. His sister, to his spiritual vision, was always like the lunar disk when only a part of it is lighted. The shadow on this bright surface seemed to him to expand and to contract; but whatever its proportions, he always appreciated the moonlight. He looked at the Baroness, and then he kissed her. "I am very much in | pleasures | How many times the word 'pleasures' appears in the text? | 1 |
us," said Acton. "That's what we must keep hold of!" He was too impatient to see Madame M nster again to wonder what Mr. Wentworth was talking about. Nevertheless, after he had passed out of the house and traversed the garden and the little piece of road that separated him from Eugenia's provisional residence, he stopped a moment outside. He stood in her little garden; the long window of her parlor was open, and he could see the white curtains, with the lamp-light shining through them, swaying softly to and fro in the warm night wind. There was a sort of excitement in the idea of seeing Madame M nster again; he became aware that his heart was beating rather faster than usual. It was this that made him stop, with a half-amused surprise. But in a moment he went along the piazza, and, approaching the open window, tapped upon its lintel with his stick. He could see the Baroness within; she was standing in the middle of the room. She came to the window and pulled aside the curtain; then she stood looking at him a moment. She was not smiling; she seemed serious. _"Mais entrez donc!"_ she said at last. Acton passed in across the window-sill; he wondered, for an instant, what was the matter with her. But the next moment she had begun to smile and had put out her hand. "Better late than never," she said. "It is very kind of you to come at this hour." "I have just returned from my journey," said Acton. "Ah, very kind, very kind," she repeated, looking about her where to sit. "I went first to the other house," Acton continued. "I expected to find you there." She had sunk into her usual chair; but she got up again, and began to move about the room. Acton had laid down his hat and stick; he was looking at her, conscious that there was in fact a great charm in seeing her again. "I don't know whether I ought to tell you to sit down," she said. "It is too late to begin a visit." "It's too early to end one," Acton declared; "and we needn't mind the beginning." She looked at him again, and, after a moment, dropped once more into her low chair, while he took a place near her. "We are in the middle, then?" she asked. "Was that where we were when you went away? No, I haven't been to the other house." "Not yesterday, nor the day before, eh?" "I don't know how many days it is." "You are tired of it," said Acton. She leaned back in her chair; her arms were folded. "That is a terrible accusation, but I have not the courage to defend myself." "I am not attacking you," said Acton. "I expected something of this kind." "It's a proof of extreme intelligence. I hope you enjoyed your journey." "Not at all," Acton declared. "I would much rather have been here with you." "Now you _are_ attacking me," said the Baroness. "You are contrasting my inconstancy with your own fidelity." "I confess I never get tired of people I like." "Ah, you are not a poor wicked foreign woman, with irritable nerves and a sophisticated mind!" "Something has happened to you since I went away," said Acton, changing his place. "Your going away--that is what has happened to me." "Do you mean to say that you have missed me?" he asked. "If I had meant to say it, it would not be worth your making a note of. I am very dishonest and my compliments are worthless." Acton was silent for some moments. "You have broken down," he said at last. Madame M nster left her chair, and began to move about. "Only for a moment. I shall pull myself together again." "You had better not take it too hard. If you are bored, you needn't be afraid to say so--to me at least." "You shouldn't say such things as that," the Baroness answered. "You should encourage me." "I admire your patience; that is encouraging." "You shouldn't even say that. When you talk of my patience you are disloyal to your own people. Patience implies suffering; and what have I had to suffer?" "Oh, not hunger, not unkindness, certainly," said Acton, laughing. "Nevertheless, we all admire your patience." "You all detest me!" cried the Baroness, with a sudden vehemence, turning her back toward him. "You make it hard," said Acton, getting up, "for a man to say something tender to you." This evening there was something particularly striking and touching about her; an unwonted softness and a look of suppressed emotion. He felt himself suddenly appreciating the fact that she had behaved very well. She had come to this quiet corner of the world under the weight of a cruel indignity, and she had been so gracefully, modestly thankful for the rest she found there. She had joined that simple circle over the way; she had mingled in its plain, provincial talk; she had shared its meagre and savorless pleasures. She had set herself a task, and she had rigidly performed it. She had conformed to the angular conditions of New England life, and she had had the tact and pluck to carry it off as if she liked them. Acton felt a more downright need than he had ever felt before to tell her that he admired her and that she struck him as a very superior woman. All along, hitherto, he had been on his guard with her; he had been cautious, observant, suspicious. But now a certain light tumult in his blood seemed to tell him that a finer degree of confidence in this charming woman would be its own reward. "We don't detest you," he went on. "I don't know what you mean. At any rate, I speak for myself; I don't know anything about the others. Very likely, you detest them for the dull life they make you lead. Really, it would give me a sort of pleasure to hear you say so." Eugenia had been looking at the door on the other side of the room; now she slowly turned her eyes toward Robert Acton. "What can be the motive," she asked, "of a man like you--an honest man, a _galant homme_--in saying so base a thing as that?" "Does it sound very base?" asked Acton, candidly. "I suppose it does, and I thank you for telling me so. Of course, I don't mean it literally." The Baroness stood looking at him. "How do you mean it?" she asked. This question was difficult to answer, and Acton, feeling the least bit foolish, walked to the open window and looked out. He stood there, thinking a moment, and then he turned back. "You know that document that you were to send to Germany," he said. "You called it your 'renunciation.' Did you ever send it?" Madame M nster's eyes expanded; she looked very grave. "What a singular answer to my question!" "Oh, it isn't an answer," said Acton. "I have wished to ask you, many times. I thought it probable you would tell me yourself. The question, on my part, seems abrupt now; but it would be abrupt at any time." The Baroness was silent a moment; and then, "I think I have told you too much!" she said. This declaration appeared to Acton to have a certain force; he had indeed a sense of asking more of her than he offered her. He returned to the window, and watched, for a moment, a little star that twinkled through the lattice of the piazza. There were at any rate offers enough he could make; perhaps he had hitherto not been sufficiently explicit in doing so. "I wish you would ask something of me," he presently said. "Is there nothing I can do for you? If you can't stand this dull life any more, let me amuse you!" The Baroness had sunk once more into a chair, and she had taken up a fan which she held, with both hands, to her mouth. Over the top of the fan her eyes were fixed on him. "You are very strange tonight," she said, with a little laugh. "I will do anything in the world," he rejoined, standing in front of her. "Shouldn't you like to travel about and see something of the country? Won't you go to Niagara? You ought to see Niagara, you know." "With you, do you mean?" "I should be delighted to take you." "You alone?" Acton looked at her, smiling, and yet with a serious air. "Well, yes; we might go alone," he said. "If you were not what you are," she answered, "I should feel insulted." "How do you mean--what I am?" "If you were one of the gentlemen I have been used to all my life. If you were not a queer Bostonian." "If the gentlemen you have been used to have taught you to expect insults," said Acton, "I am glad I am what I am. You had much better come to Niagara." "If you wish to 'amuse' me," the Baroness declared, "you need go to no further expense. You amuse me very effectually." He sat down opposite to her; she still held her fan up to her face, with her eyes only showing above it. There was a moment's silence, and then he said, returning to his former question, "Have you sent that document to Germany?" Again there was a moment's silence. The expressive eyes of Madame M nster seemed, however, half to break it. "I will tell you--at Niagara!" she said. She had hardly spoken when the door at the further end of the room opened--the door upon which, some minutes previous, Eugenia had fixed her gaze. Clifford Wentworth stood there, blushing and looking rather awkward. The Baroness rose, quickly, and Acton, more slowly, did the same. Clifford gave him no greeting; he was looking at Eugenia. "Ah, you were here?" exclaimed Acton. "He was in Felix's studio," said Madame M nster. "He wanted to see his sketches." Clifford looked at Robert Acton, but said nothing; he only fanned himself with his hat. "You chose a bad moment," said Acton; "you hadn't much light." "I hadn't any!" said Clifford, laughing. "Your candle went out?" Eugenia asked. "You should have come back here and lighted it again." Clifford looked at her a moment. "So I have--come back. But I have left the candle!" Eugenia turned away. "You are very stupid, my poor boy. You had better go home." "Well," said Clifford, "good-night!" "Haven't you a word to throw to a man when he has safely returned from a dangerous journey?" Acton asked. "How do you do?" said Clifford. "I thought--I thought you were----" and he paused, looking at the Baroness again. "You thought I was at Newport, eh? So I was--this morning." "Good-night, clever child!" said Madame M nster, over her shoulder. Clifford stared at her--not at all like a clever child; and then, with one of his little facetious growls, took his departure. "What is the matter with him?" asked Acton, when he was gone. "He seemed rather in a muddle." Eugenia, who was near the window, glanced out, listening a moment. "The matter--the matter"--she answered. "But you don't say such things here." "If you mean that he had been drinking a little, you can say that." "He doesn't drink any more. I have cured him. And in return--he's in love with me." It was Acton's turn to stare. He instantly thought of his sister; but he said nothing about her. He began to laugh. "I don't wonder at his passion! But I wonder at his forsaking your society for that of your brother's paint-brushes." Eugenia was silent a little. "He had not been in the studio. I invented that at the moment." "Invented it? For what purpose?" "He has an idea of being romantic. He has adopted the habit of coming to see me at midnight--passing only through the orchard and through Felix's painting-room, which has a door opening that way. It seems to amuse him," added Eugenia, with a little laugh. Acton felt more surprise than he confessed to, for this was a new view of Clifford, whose irregularities had hitherto been quite without the romantic element. He tried to laugh again, but he felt rather too serious, and after a moment's hesitation his seriousness explained itself. "I hope you don't encourage him," he said. "He must not be inconstant to poor Lizzie." "To your sister?" "You know they are decidedly intimate," said Acton. "Ah," cried Eugenia, smiling, "has she--has she----" "I don't know," Acton interrupted, "what she has. But I always supposed that Clifford had a desire to make himself agreeable to her." "Ah, _par exemple!_" the Baroness went on. "The little monster! The next time he becomes sentimental I will him tell that he ought to be ashamed of himself." Acton was silent a moment. "You had better say nothing about it." "I had told him as much already, on general grounds," said the Baroness. "But in this country, you know, the relations of young people are so extraordinary that one is quite at sea. They are not engaged when you would quite say they ought to be. Take Charlotte Wentworth, for instance, and that young ecclesiastic. If I were her father I should insist upon his marrying her; but it appears to be thought there is no urgency. On the other hand, you suddenly learn that a boy of twenty and a little girl who is still with her governess--your sister has no governess? Well, then, who is never away from her mamma--a young couple, in short, between whom you have noticed nothing beyond an exchange of the childish pleasantries characteristic of their age, are on the point of setting up as man and wife." The Baroness spoke with a certain exaggerated volubility which was in contrast with the languid grace that had characterized her manner before Clifford made his appearance. It seemed to Acton that there was a spark of irritation in her eye--a note of irony (as when she spoke of Lizzie being never away from her mother) in her voice. If Madame M nster was irritated, Robert Acton was vaguely mystified; she began to move about the room again, and he looked at her without saying anything. Presently she took out her watch, and, glancing at it, declared that it was three o'clock in the morning and that he must go. "I have not been here an hour," he said, "and they are still sitting up at the other house. You can see the lights. Your brother has not come in." "Oh, at the other house," cried Eugenia, "they are terrible people! I don't know what they may do over there. I am a quiet little humdrum woman; I have rigid rules and I keep them. One of them is not to have visitors in the small hours--especially clever men like you. So good-night!" Decidedly, the Baroness was incisive; and though Acton bade her good-night and departed, he was still a good deal mystified. The next day Clifford Wentworth came to see Lizzie, and Acton, who was at home and saw him pass through the garden, took note of the circumstance. He had a natural desire to make it tally with Madame M nster's account of Clifford's disaffection; but his ingenuity, finding itself unequal to the task, resolved at last to ask help of the young man's candor. He waited till he saw him going away, and then he went out and overtook him in the grounds. "I wish very much you would answer me a question," Acton said. "What were you doing, last night, at Madame M nster's?" Clifford began to laugh and to blush, by no means like a young man with a romantic secret. "What did she tell you?" he asked. "That is exactly what I don't want to say." "Well, I want to tell you the same," said Clifford; "and unless I know it perhaps I can't." They had stopped in a garden path; Acton looked hard at his rosy young kinsman. "She said she couldn't fancy what had got into you; you appeared to have taken a violent dislike to her." Clifford stared, looking a little alarmed. "Oh, come," he growled, "you don't mean that!" "And that when--for common civility's sake--you came occasionally to the house you left her alone and spent your time in Felix's studio, under pretext of looking at his sketches." "Oh, come!" growled Clifford, again. "Did you ever know me to tell an untruth?" "Yes, lots of them!" said Clifford, seeing an opening, out of the discussion, for his sarcastic powers. "Well," he presently added, "I thought you were my father." "You knew someone was there?" "We heard you coming in." Acton meditated. "You had been with the Baroness, then?" "I was in the parlor. We heard your step outside. I thought it was my father." "And on that," asked Acton, "you ran away?" "She told me to go--to go out by the studio." Acton meditated more intensely; if there had been a chair at hand he would have sat down. "Why should she wish you not to meet your father?" "Well," said Clifford, "father doesn't like to see me there." Acton looked askance at his companion and forbore to make any comment upon this assertion. "Has he said so," he asked, "to the Baroness?" "Well, I hope not," said Clifford. "He hasn't said so--in so many words--to me. But I know it worries him; and I want to stop worrying him. The Baroness knows it, and she wants me to stop, too." "To stop coming to see her?" "I don't know about that; but to stop worrying father. Eugenia knows everything," Clifford added, with an air of knowingness of his own. "Ah," said Acton, interrogatively, "Eugenia knows everything?" "She knew it was not father coming in." "Then why did you go?" Clifford blushed and laughed afresh. "Well, I was afraid it was. And besides, she told me to go, at any rate." "Did she think it was I?" Acton asked. "She didn't say so." Again Robert Acton reflected. "But you didn't go," he presently said; "you came back." "I couldn't get out of the studio," Clifford rejoined. "The door was locked, and Felix has nailed some planks across the lower half of the confounded windows to make the light come in from above. So they were no use. I waited there a good while, and then, suddenly, I felt ashamed. I didn't want to be hiding away from my own father. I couldn't stand it any longer. I bolted out, and when I found it was you I was a little flurried. But Eugenia carried it off, didn't she?" Clifford added, in the tone of a young humorist whose perception had not been permanently clouded by the sense of his own discomfort. "Beautifully!" said Acton. "Especially," he continued, "when one remembers that you were very imprudent and that she must have been a good deal annoyed." "Oh," cried Clifford, with the indifference of a young man who feels that however he may have failed of felicity in behavior he is extremely just in his impressions, "Eugenia doesn't care for anything!" Acton hesitated a moment. "Thank you for telling me this," he said at last. And then, laying his hand on Clifford's shoulder, he added, "Tell me one thing more: are you by chance a little in love with the Baroness?" "No, sir!" said Clifford, almost shaking off his hand. CHAPTER X The first sunday that followed Robert Acton's return from Newport witnessed a change in the brilliant weather that had long prevailed. The rain began to fall and the day was cold and dreary. Mr. Wentworth and his daughters put on overshoes and went to church, and Felix Young, without overshoes, went also, holding an umbrella over Gertrude. It is to be feared that, in the whole observance, this was the privilege he most highly valued. The Baroness remained at home; she was in neither a cheerful nor a devotional mood. She had, however, never been, during her residence in the United States, what is called a regular attendant at divine service; and on this particular Sunday morning of which I began with speaking she stood at the window of her little drawing-room, watching the long arm of a rose tree that was attached to her piazza, but a portion of which had disengaged itself, sway to and fro, shake and gesticulate, against the dusky drizzle of the sky. Every now and then, in a gust of wind, the rose tree scattered a shower of water-drops against the window-pane; it appeared to have a kind of human movement--a menacing, warning intention. The room was very cold; Madame M nster put on a shawl and walked about. Then she determined to have some fire; and summoning her ancient negress, the contrast of whose polished ebony and whose crimson turban had been at first a source of satisfaction to her, she made arrangements for the production of a crackling flame. This old woman's name was Azarina. The Baroness had begun by thinking that there would be a savory wildness in her talk, and, for amusement, she had encouraged her to chatter. But Azarina was dry and prim; her conversation was anything but African; she reminded Eugenia of the tiresome old ladies she met in society. She knew, however, how to make a fire; so that after she had laid the logs, Eugenia, who was terribly bored, found a quarter of an hour's entertainment in sitting and watching them blaze and sputter. She had thought it very likely Robert Acton would come and see her; she had not met him since that infelicitous evening. But the morning waned without his coming; several times she thought she heard his step on the piazza; but it was only a window-shutter shaking in a rain-gust. The Baroness, since the beginning of that episode in her career of which a slight sketch has been attempted in these pages, had had many moments of irritation. But today her irritation had a peculiar keenness; it appeared to feed upon itself. It urged her to do something; but it suggested no particularly profitable line of action. If she could have done something at the moment, on the spot, she would have stepped upon a European steamer and turned her back, with a kind of rapture, upon that profoundly mortifying failure, her visit to her American relations. It is not exactly apparent why she should have termed this enterprise a failure, inasmuch as she had been treated with the highest distinction for which allowance had been made in American institutions. Her irritation came, at bottom, from the sense, which, always present, had suddenly grown acute, that the social soil on this big, vague continent was somehow not adapted for growing those plants whose fragrance she especially inclined to inhale and by which she liked to see herself surrounded--a species of vegetation for which she carried a collection of seedlings, as we may say, in her pocket. She found her chief happiness in the sense of exerting a certain power and making a certain impression; and now she felt the annoyance of a rather wearied swimmer who, on nearing shore, to land, finds a smooth straight wall of rock when he had counted upon a clean firm beach. Her power, in the American air, seemed to have lost its prehensile attributes; the smooth wall of rock was insurmountable. _"Surely je n'en suis pas l ,"_ she said to herself, "that I let it make me uncomfortable that a Mr. Robert Acton shouldn't honor me with a visit!" Yet she was vexed that he had not come; and she was vexed at her vexation. Her brother, at least, came in, stamping in the hall and shaking the wet from his coat. In a moment he entered the room, with a glow in his cheek and half-a-dozen rain-drops glistening on his moustache. "Ah, you have a fire," he said. _"Les beaux jours sont pass s,"_ replied the Baroness. "Never, never! They have only begun," Felix declared, planting himself before the hearth. He turned his back to the fire, placed his hands behind him, extended his legs and looked away through the window with an expression of face which seemed to denote the perception of rose-color even in the tints of a wet Sunday. His sister, from her chair, looked up at him, watching him; and what she saw in his face was not grateful to her present mood. She was puzzled by many things, but her brother's disposition was a frequent source of wonder to her. I say frequent and not constant, for there were long periods during which she gave her attention to other problems. Sometimes she had said to herself that his happy temper, his eternal gaiety, was an affectation, a _pose_; but she was vaguely conscious that during the present summer he had been a highly successful comedian. They had never yet had an explanation; she had not known the need of one. Felix was presumably following the bent of his disinterested genius, and she felt that she had no advice to give him that he would understand. With this, there was always a certain element of comfort about Felix--the assurance that he would not interfere. He was very delicate, this pure-minded Felix; in effect, he was her brother, and Madame M nster felt that there was a great propriety, every way, in that. It is true that Felix was delicate; he was not fond of explanations with his sister; this was one of the very few things in the world about which he was uncomfortable. But now he was not thinking of anything uncomfortable. "Dear brother," said Eugenia at last, "do stop making _les yeux doux_ at the rain." "With pleasure. I will make them at you!" answered Felix. "How much longer," asked Eugenia, in a moment, "do you propose to remain in this lovely spot?" Felix stared. "Do you want to go away--already?" "'Already' is delicious. I am not so happy as you." Felix dropped into a chair, looking at the fire. "The fact is I _am_ happy," he said in his light, clear tone. "And do you propose to spend your life in making love to Gertrude Wentworth?" "Yes!" said Felix, smiling sidewise at his sister. The Baroness returned his glance, much more gravely; and then, "Do you like her?" she asked. "Don't you?" Felix demanded. The Baroness was silent a moment. "I will answer you in the words of the gentleman who was asked if he liked music: _'Je ne la crains pas!'_" "She admires you immensely," said Felix. "I don't care for that. Other women should not admire one." "They should dislike you?" Again Madame M nster hesitated. "They should hate me! It's a measure of the time I have been losing here that they don't." "No time is lost in which one has been happy!" said Felix, with a bright sententiousness which may well have been a little irritating. "And in which," rejoined his sister, with a harsher laugh, "one has secured the affections of a young lady with a fortune!" Felix explained, very candidly and seriously. "I have secured Gertrude's affection, but I am by no means sure that I have secured her fortune. That may come--or it may not." "Ah, well, it _may!_ That's the great point." "It depends upon her father. He doesn't smile upon our union. You know he wants her to marry Mr. Brand." "I know nothing about it!" cried the Baroness. "Please to put on a log." Felix complied with her request and sat watching the quickening of the flame. Presently his sister added, "And you propose to elope with mademoiselle?" "By no means. I don't wish to do anything that's disagreeable to Mr. Wentworth. He has been far too kind to us." "But you must choose between pleasing yourself and pleasing him." "I want to please everyone!" exclaimed Felix, joyously. "I have a good conscience. I made up my mind at the outset that it was not my place to make love to Gertrude." "So, to simplify matters, she made love to you!" Felix looked at his sister with sudden gravity. "You say you are not afraid of her," he said. "But perhaps you ought to be--a little. She's a very clever person." "I begin to see it!" cried the Baroness. Her brother, making no rejoinder, leaned back in his chair, and there was a long silence. At last, with an altered accent, Madame M nster put another question. "You expect, at any rate, to marry?" "I shall be greatly disappointed if we don't." "A disappointment or two will do you good!" the Baroness declared. "And, afterwards, do you mean to turn American?" "It seems to me I am a very good American already. But we shall go to Europe. Gertrude wants extremely to see the world." "Ah, like me, when I came here!" said the Baroness, with a little laugh. "No, not like you," Felix rejoined, looking at his sister with a certain gentle seriousness. While he looked at her she rose from her chair, and he also got up. "Gertrude is not at all like you," he went on; "but in her own way she is almost as clever." He paused a moment; his soul was full of an agreeable feeling and of a lively disposition to express it. His sister, to his spiritual vision, was always like the lunar disk when only a part of it is lighted. The shadow on this bright surface seemed to him to expand and to contract; but whatever its proportions, he always appreciated the moonlight. He looked at the Baroness, and then he kissed her. "I am very much in | seemed | How many times the word 'seemed' appears in the text? | 2 |
us," said Acton. "That's what we must keep hold of!" He was too impatient to see Madame M nster again to wonder what Mr. Wentworth was talking about. Nevertheless, after he had passed out of the house and traversed the garden and the little piece of road that separated him from Eugenia's provisional residence, he stopped a moment outside. He stood in her little garden; the long window of her parlor was open, and he could see the white curtains, with the lamp-light shining through them, swaying softly to and fro in the warm night wind. There was a sort of excitement in the idea of seeing Madame M nster again; he became aware that his heart was beating rather faster than usual. It was this that made him stop, with a half-amused surprise. But in a moment he went along the piazza, and, approaching the open window, tapped upon its lintel with his stick. He could see the Baroness within; she was standing in the middle of the room. She came to the window and pulled aside the curtain; then she stood looking at him a moment. She was not smiling; she seemed serious. _"Mais entrez donc!"_ she said at last. Acton passed in across the window-sill; he wondered, for an instant, what was the matter with her. But the next moment she had begun to smile and had put out her hand. "Better late than never," she said. "It is very kind of you to come at this hour." "I have just returned from my journey," said Acton. "Ah, very kind, very kind," she repeated, looking about her where to sit. "I went first to the other house," Acton continued. "I expected to find you there." She had sunk into her usual chair; but she got up again, and began to move about the room. Acton had laid down his hat and stick; he was looking at her, conscious that there was in fact a great charm in seeing her again. "I don't know whether I ought to tell you to sit down," she said. "It is too late to begin a visit." "It's too early to end one," Acton declared; "and we needn't mind the beginning." She looked at him again, and, after a moment, dropped once more into her low chair, while he took a place near her. "We are in the middle, then?" she asked. "Was that where we were when you went away? No, I haven't been to the other house." "Not yesterday, nor the day before, eh?" "I don't know how many days it is." "You are tired of it," said Acton. She leaned back in her chair; her arms were folded. "That is a terrible accusation, but I have not the courage to defend myself." "I am not attacking you," said Acton. "I expected something of this kind." "It's a proof of extreme intelligence. I hope you enjoyed your journey." "Not at all," Acton declared. "I would much rather have been here with you." "Now you _are_ attacking me," said the Baroness. "You are contrasting my inconstancy with your own fidelity." "I confess I never get tired of people I like." "Ah, you are not a poor wicked foreign woman, with irritable nerves and a sophisticated mind!" "Something has happened to you since I went away," said Acton, changing his place. "Your going away--that is what has happened to me." "Do you mean to say that you have missed me?" he asked. "If I had meant to say it, it would not be worth your making a note of. I am very dishonest and my compliments are worthless." Acton was silent for some moments. "You have broken down," he said at last. Madame M nster left her chair, and began to move about. "Only for a moment. I shall pull myself together again." "You had better not take it too hard. If you are bored, you needn't be afraid to say so--to me at least." "You shouldn't say such things as that," the Baroness answered. "You should encourage me." "I admire your patience; that is encouraging." "You shouldn't even say that. When you talk of my patience you are disloyal to your own people. Patience implies suffering; and what have I had to suffer?" "Oh, not hunger, not unkindness, certainly," said Acton, laughing. "Nevertheless, we all admire your patience." "You all detest me!" cried the Baroness, with a sudden vehemence, turning her back toward him. "You make it hard," said Acton, getting up, "for a man to say something tender to you." This evening there was something particularly striking and touching about her; an unwonted softness and a look of suppressed emotion. He felt himself suddenly appreciating the fact that she had behaved very well. She had come to this quiet corner of the world under the weight of a cruel indignity, and she had been so gracefully, modestly thankful for the rest she found there. She had joined that simple circle over the way; she had mingled in its plain, provincial talk; she had shared its meagre and savorless pleasures. She had set herself a task, and she had rigidly performed it. She had conformed to the angular conditions of New England life, and she had had the tact and pluck to carry it off as if she liked them. Acton felt a more downright need than he had ever felt before to tell her that he admired her and that she struck him as a very superior woman. All along, hitherto, he had been on his guard with her; he had been cautious, observant, suspicious. But now a certain light tumult in his blood seemed to tell him that a finer degree of confidence in this charming woman would be its own reward. "We don't detest you," he went on. "I don't know what you mean. At any rate, I speak for myself; I don't know anything about the others. Very likely, you detest them for the dull life they make you lead. Really, it would give me a sort of pleasure to hear you say so." Eugenia had been looking at the door on the other side of the room; now she slowly turned her eyes toward Robert Acton. "What can be the motive," she asked, "of a man like you--an honest man, a _galant homme_--in saying so base a thing as that?" "Does it sound very base?" asked Acton, candidly. "I suppose it does, and I thank you for telling me so. Of course, I don't mean it literally." The Baroness stood looking at him. "How do you mean it?" she asked. This question was difficult to answer, and Acton, feeling the least bit foolish, walked to the open window and looked out. He stood there, thinking a moment, and then he turned back. "You know that document that you were to send to Germany," he said. "You called it your 'renunciation.' Did you ever send it?" Madame M nster's eyes expanded; she looked very grave. "What a singular answer to my question!" "Oh, it isn't an answer," said Acton. "I have wished to ask you, many times. I thought it probable you would tell me yourself. The question, on my part, seems abrupt now; but it would be abrupt at any time." The Baroness was silent a moment; and then, "I think I have told you too much!" she said. This declaration appeared to Acton to have a certain force; he had indeed a sense of asking more of her than he offered her. He returned to the window, and watched, for a moment, a little star that twinkled through the lattice of the piazza. There were at any rate offers enough he could make; perhaps he had hitherto not been sufficiently explicit in doing so. "I wish you would ask something of me," he presently said. "Is there nothing I can do for you? If you can't stand this dull life any more, let me amuse you!" The Baroness had sunk once more into a chair, and she had taken up a fan which she held, with both hands, to her mouth. Over the top of the fan her eyes were fixed on him. "You are very strange tonight," she said, with a little laugh. "I will do anything in the world," he rejoined, standing in front of her. "Shouldn't you like to travel about and see something of the country? Won't you go to Niagara? You ought to see Niagara, you know." "With you, do you mean?" "I should be delighted to take you." "You alone?" Acton looked at her, smiling, and yet with a serious air. "Well, yes; we might go alone," he said. "If you were not what you are," she answered, "I should feel insulted." "How do you mean--what I am?" "If you were one of the gentlemen I have been used to all my life. If you were not a queer Bostonian." "If the gentlemen you have been used to have taught you to expect insults," said Acton, "I am glad I am what I am. You had much better come to Niagara." "If you wish to 'amuse' me," the Baroness declared, "you need go to no further expense. You amuse me very effectually." He sat down opposite to her; she still held her fan up to her face, with her eyes only showing above it. There was a moment's silence, and then he said, returning to his former question, "Have you sent that document to Germany?" Again there was a moment's silence. The expressive eyes of Madame M nster seemed, however, half to break it. "I will tell you--at Niagara!" she said. She had hardly spoken when the door at the further end of the room opened--the door upon which, some minutes previous, Eugenia had fixed her gaze. Clifford Wentworth stood there, blushing and looking rather awkward. The Baroness rose, quickly, and Acton, more slowly, did the same. Clifford gave him no greeting; he was looking at Eugenia. "Ah, you were here?" exclaimed Acton. "He was in Felix's studio," said Madame M nster. "He wanted to see his sketches." Clifford looked at Robert Acton, but said nothing; he only fanned himself with his hat. "You chose a bad moment," said Acton; "you hadn't much light." "I hadn't any!" said Clifford, laughing. "Your candle went out?" Eugenia asked. "You should have come back here and lighted it again." Clifford looked at her a moment. "So I have--come back. But I have left the candle!" Eugenia turned away. "You are very stupid, my poor boy. You had better go home." "Well," said Clifford, "good-night!" "Haven't you a word to throw to a man when he has safely returned from a dangerous journey?" Acton asked. "How do you do?" said Clifford. "I thought--I thought you were----" and he paused, looking at the Baroness again. "You thought I was at Newport, eh? So I was--this morning." "Good-night, clever child!" said Madame M nster, over her shoulder. Clifford stared at her--not at all like a clever child; and then, with one of his little facetious growls, took his departure. "What is the matter with him?" asked Acton, when he was gone. "He seemed rather in a muddle." Eugenia, who was near the window, glanced out, listening a moment. "The matter--the matter"--she answered. "But you don't say such things here." "If you mean that he had been drinking a little, you can say that." "He doesn't drink any more. I have cured him. And in return--he's in love with me." It was Acton's turn to stare. He instantly thought of his sister; but he said nothing about her. He began to laugh. "I don't wonder at his passion! But I wonder at his forsaking your society for that of your brother's paint-brushes." Eugenia was silent a little. "He had not been in the studio. I invented that at the moment." "Invented it? For what purpose?" "He has an idea of being romantic. He has adopted the habit of coming to see me at midnight--passing only through the orchard and through Felix's painting-room, which has a door opening that way. It seems to amuse him," added Eugenia, with a little laugh. Acton felt more surprise than he confessed to, for this was a new view of Clifford, whose irregularities had hitherto been quite without the romantic element. He tried to laugh again, but he felt rather too serious, and after a moment's hesitation his seriousness explained itself. "I hope you don't encourage him," he said. "He must not be inconstant to poor Lizzie." "To your sister?" "You know they are decidedly intimate," said Acton. "Ah," cried Eugenia, smiling, "has she--has she----" "I don't know," Acton interrupted, "what she has. But I always supposed that Clifford had a desire to make himself agreeable to her." "Ah, _par exemple!_" the Baroness went on. "The little monster! The next time he becomes sentimental I will him tell that he ought to be ashamed of himself." Acton was silent a moment. "You had better say nothing about it." "I had told him as much already, on general grounds," said the Baroness. "But in this country, you know, the relations of young people are so extraordinary that one is quite at sea. They are not engaged when you would quite say they ought to be. Take Charlotte Wentworth, for instance, and that young ecclesiastic. If I were her father I should insist upon his marrying her; but it appears to be thought there is no urgency. On the other hand, you suddenly learn that a boy of twenty and a little girl who is still with her governess--your sister has no governess? Well, then, who is never away from her mamma--a young couple, in short, between whom you have noticed nothing beyond an exchange of the childish pleasantries characteristic of their age, are on the point of setting up as man and wife." The Baroness spoke with a certain exaggerated volubility which was in contrast with the languid grace that had characterized her manner before Clifford made his appearance. It seemed to Acton that there was a spark of irritation in her eye--a note of irony (as when she spoke of Lizzie being never away from her mother) in her voice. If Madame M nster was irritated, Robert Acton was vaguely mystified; she began to move about the room again, and he looked at her without saying anything. Presently she took out her watch, and, glancing at it, declared that it was three o'clock in the morning and that he must go. "I have not been here an hour," he said, "and they are still sitting up at the other house. You can see the lights. Your brother has not come in." "Oh, at the other house," cried Eugenia, "they are terrible people! I don't know what they may do over there. I am a quiet little humdrum woman; I have rigid rules and I keep them. One of them is not to have visitors in the small hours--especially clever men like you. So good-night!" Decidedly, the Baroness was incisive; and though Acton bade her good-night and departed, he was still a good deal mystified. The next day Clifford Wentworth came to see Lizzie, and Acton, who was at home and saw him pass through the garden, took note of the circumstance. He had a natural desire to make it tally with Madame M nster's account of Clifford's disaffection; but his ingenuity, finding itself unequal to the task, resolved at last to ask help of the young man's candor. He waited till he saw him going away, and then he went out and overtook him in the grounds. "I wish very much you would answer me a question," Acton said. "What were you doing, last night, at Madame M nster's?" Clifford began to laugh and to blush, by no means like a young man with a romantic secret. "What did she tell you?" he asked. "That is exactly what I don't want to say." "Well, I want to tell you the same," said Clifford; "and unless I know it perhaps I can't." They had stopped in a garden path; Acton looked hard at his rosy young kinsman. "She said she couldn't fancy what had got into you; you appeared to have taken a violent dislike to her." Clifford stared, looking a little alarmed. "Oh, come," he growled, "you don't mean that!" "And that when--for common civility's sake--you came occasionally to the house you left her alone and spent your time in Felix's studio, under pretext of looking at his sketches." "Oh, come!" growled Clifford, again. "Did you ever know me to tell an untruth?" "Yes, lots of them!" said Clifford, seeing an opening, out of the discussion, for his sarcastic powers. "Well," he presently added, "I thought you were my father." "You knew someone was there?" "We heard you coming in." Acton meditated. "You had been with the Baroness, then?" "I was in the parlor. We heard your step outside. I thought it was my father." "And on that," asked Acton, "you ran away?" "She told me to go--to go out by the studio." Acton meditated more intensely; if there had been a chair at hand he would have sat down. "Why should she wish you not to meet your father?" "Well," said Clifford, "father doesn't like to see me there." Acton looked askance at his companion and forbore to make any comment upon this assertion. "Has he said so," he asked, "to the Baroness?" "Well, I hope not," said Clifford. "He hasn't said so--in so many words--to me. But I know it worries him; and I want to stop worrying him. The Baroness knows it, and she wants me to stop, too." "To stop coming to see her?" "I don't know about that; but to stop worrying father. Eugenia knows everything," Clifford added, with an air of knowingness of his own. "Ah," said Acton, interrogatively, "Eugenia knows everything?" "She knew it was not father coming in." "Then why did you go?" Clifford blushed and laughed afresh. "Well, I was afraid it was. And besides, she told me to go, at any rate." "Did she think it was I?" Acton asked. "She didn't say so." Again Robert Acton reflected. "But you didn't go," he presently said; "you came back." "I couldn't get out of the studio," Clifford rejoined. "The door was locked, and Felix has nailed some planks across the lower half of the confounded windows to make the light come in from above. So they were no use. I waited there a good while, and then, suddenly, I felt ashamed. I didn't want to be hiding away from my own father. I couldn't stand it any longer. I bolted out, and when I found it was you I was a little flurried. But Eugenia carried it off, didn't she?" Clifford added, in the tone of a young humorist whose perception had not been permanently clouded by the sense of his own discomfort. "Beautifully!" said Acton. "Especially," he continued, "when one remembers that you were very imprudent and that she must have been a good deal annoyed." "Oh," cried Clifford, with the indifference of a young man who feels that however he may have failed of felicity in behavior he is extremely just in his impressions, "Eugenia doesn't care for anything!" Acton hesitated a moment. "Thank you for telling me this," he said at last. And then, laying his hand on Clifford's shoulder, he added, "Tell me one thing more: are you by chance a little in love with the Baroness?" "No, sir!" said Clifford, almost shaking off his hand. CHAPTER X The first sunday that followed Robert Acton's return from Newport witnessed a change in the brilliant weather that had long prevailed. The rain began to fall and the day was cold and dreary. Mr. Wentworth and his daughters put on overshoes and went to church, and Felix Young, without overshoes, went also, holding an umbrella over Gertrude. It is to be feared that, in the whole observance, this was the privilege he most highly valued. The Baroness remained at home; she was in neither a cheerful nor a devotional mood. She had, however, never been, during her residence in the United States, what is called a regular attendant at divine service; and on this particular Sunday morning of which I began with speaking she stood at the window of her little drawing-room, watching the long arm of a rose tree that was attached to her piazza, but a portion of which had disengaged itself, sway to and fro, shake and gesticulate, against the dusky drizzle of the sky. Every now and then, in a gust of wind, the rose tree scattered a shower of water-drops against the window-pane; it appeared to have a kind of human movement--a menacing, warning intention. The room was very cold; Madame M nster put on a shawl and walked about. Then she determined to have some fire; and summoning her ancient negress, the contrast of whose polished ebony and whose crimson turban had been at first a source of satisfaction to her, she made arrangements for the production of a crackling flame. This old woman's name was Azarina. The Baroness had begun by thinking that there would be a savory wildness in her talk, and, for amusement, she had encouraged her to chatter. But Azarina was dry and prim; her conversation was anything but African; she reminded Eugenia of the tiresome old ladies she met in society. She knew, however, how to make a fire; so that after she had laid the logs, Eugenia, who was terribly bored, found a quarter of an hour's entertainment in sitting and watching them blaze and sputter. She had thought it very likely Robert Acton would come and see her; she had not met him since that infelicitous evening. But the morning waned without his coming; several times she thought she heard his step on the piazza; but it was only a window-shutter shaking in a rain-gust. The Baroness, since the beginning of that episode in her career of which a slight sketch has been attempted in these pages, had had many moments of irritation. But today her irritation had a peculiar keenness; it appeared to feed upon itself. It urged her to do something; but it suggested no particularly profitable line of action. If she could have done something at the moment, on the spot, she would have stepped upon a European steamer and turned her back, with a kind of rapture, upon that profoundly mortifying failure, her visit to her American relations. It is not exactly apparent why she should have termed this enterprise a failure, inasmuch as she had been treated with the highest distinction for which allowance had been made in American institutions. Her irritation came, at bottom, from the sense, which, always present, had suddenly grown acute, that the social soil on this big, vague continent was somehow not adapted for growing those plants whose fragrance she especially inclined to inhale and by which she liked to see herself surrounded--a species of vegetation for which she carried a collection of seedlings, as we may say, in her pocket. She found her chief happiness in the sense of exerting a certain power and making a certain impression; and now she felt the annoyance of a rather wearied swimmer who, on nearing shore, to land, finds a smooth straight wall of rock when he had counted upon a clean firm beach. Her power, in the American air, seemed to have lost its prehensile attributes; the smooth wall of rock was insurmountable. _"Surely je n'en suis pas l ,"_ she said to herself, "that I let it make me uncomfortable that a Mr. Robert Acton shouldn't honor me with a visit!" Yet she was vexed that he had not come; and she was vexed at her vexation. Her brother, at least, came in, stamping in the hall and shaking the wet from his coat. In a moment he entered the room, with a glow in his cheek and half-a-dozen rain-drops glistening on his moustache. "Ah, you have a fire," he said. _"Les beaux jours sont pass s,"_ replied the Baroness. "Never, never! They have only begun," Felix declared, planting himself before the hearth. He turned his back to the fire, placed his hands behind him, extended his legs and looked away through the window with an expression of face which seemed to denote the perception of rose-color even in the tints of a wet Sunday. His sister, from her chair, looked up at him, watching him; and what she saw in his face was not grateful to her present mood. She was puzzled by many things, but her brother's disposition was a frequent source of wonder to her. I say frequent and not constant, for there were long periods during which she gave her attention to other problems. Sometimes she had said to herself that his happy temper, his eternal gaiety, was an affectation, a _pose_; but she was vaguely conscious that during the present summer he had been a highly successful comedian. They had never yet had an explanation; she had not known the need of one. Felix was presumably following the bent of his disinterested genius, and she felt that she had no advice to give him that he would understand. With this, there was always a certain element of comfort about Felix--the assurance that he would not interfere. He was very delicate, this pure-minded Felix; in effect, he was her brother, and Madame M nster felt that there was a great propriety, every way, in that. It is true that Felix was delicate; he was not fond of explanations with his sister; this was one of the very few things in the world about which he was uncomfortable. But now he was not thinking of anything uncomfortable. "Dear brother," said Eugenia at last, "do stop making _les yeux doux_ at the rain." "With pleasure. I will make them at you!" answered Felix. "How much longer," asked Eugenia, in a moment, "do you propose to remain in this lovely spot?" Felix stared. "Do you want to go away--already?" "'Already' is delicious. I am not so happy as you." Felix dropped into a chair, looking at the fire. "The fact is I _am_ happy," he said in his light, clear tone. "And do you propose to spend your life in making love to Gertrude Wentworth?" "Yes!" said Felix, smiling sidewise at his sister. The Baroness returned his glance, much more gravely; and then, "Do you like her?" she asked. "Don't you?" Felix demanded. The Baroness was silent a moment. "I will answer you in the words of the gentleman who was asked if he liked music: _'Je ne la crains pas!'_" "She admires you immensely," said Felix. "I don't care for that. Other women should not admire one." "They should dislike you?" Again Madame M nster hesitated. "They should hate me! It's a measure of the time I have been losing here that they don't." "No time is lost in which one has been happy!" said Felix, with a bright sententiousness which may well have been a little irritating. "And in which," rejoined his sister, with a harsher laugh, "one has secured the affections of a young lady with a fortune!" Felix explained, very candidly and seriously. "I have secured Gertrude's affection, but I am by no means sure that I have secured her fortune. That may come--or it may not." "Ah, well, it _may!_ That's the great point." "It depends upon her father. He doesn't smile upon our union. You know he wants her to marry Mr. Brand." "I know nothing about it!" cried the Baroness. "Please to put on a log." Felix complied with her request and sat watching the quickening of the flame. Presently his sister added, "And you propose to elope with mademoiselle?" "By no means. I don't wish to do anything that's disagreeable to Mr. Wentworth. He has been far too kind to us." "But you must choose between pleasing yourself and pleasing him." "I want to please everyone!" exclaimed Felix, joyously. "I have a good conscience. I made up my mind at the outset that it was not my place to make love to Gertrude." "So, to simplify matters, she made love to you!" Felix looked at his sister with sudden gravity. "You say you are not afraid of her," he said. "But perhaps you ought to be--a little. She's a very clever person." "I begin to see it!" cried the Baroness. Her brother, making no rejoinder, leaned back in his chair, and there was a long silence. At last, with an altered accent, Madame M nster put another question. "You expect, at any rate, to marry?" "I shall be greatly disappointed if we don't." "A disappointment or two will do you good!" the Baroness declared. "And, afterwards, do you mean to turn American?" "It seems to me I am a very good American already. But we shall go to Europe. Gertrude wants extremely to see the world." "Ah, like me, when I came here!" said the Baroness, with a little laugh. "No, not like you," Felix rejoined, looking at his sister with a certain gentle seriousness. While he looked at her she rose from her chair, and he also got up. "Gertrude is not at all like you," he went on; "but in her own way she is almost as clever." He paused a moment; his soul was full of an agreeable feeling and of a lively disposition to express it. His sister, to his spiritual vision, was always like the lunar disk when only a part of it is lighted. The shadow on this bright surface seemed to him to expand and to contract; but whatever its proportions, he always appreciated the moonlight. He looked at the Baroness, and then he kissed her. "I am very much in | should | How many times the word 'should' appears in the text? | 2 |
us," said Acton. "That's what we must keep hold of!" He was too impatient to see Madame M nster again to wonder what Mr. Wentworth was talking about. Nevertheless, after he had passed out of the house and traversed the garden and the little piece of road that separated him from Eugenia's provisional residence, he stopped a moment outside. He stood in her little garden; the long window of her parlor was open, and he could see the white curtains, with the lamp-light shining through them, swaying softly to and fro in the warm night wind. There was a sort of excitement in the idea of seeing Madame M nster again; he became aware that his heart was beating rather faster than usual. It was this that made him stop, with a half-amused surprise. But in a moment he went along the piazza, and, approaching the open window, tapped upon its lintel with his stick. He could see the Baroness within; she was standing in the middle of the room. She came to the window and pulled aside the curtain; then she stood looking at him a moment. She was not smiling; she seemed serious. _"Mais entrez donc!"_ she said at last. Acton passed in across the window-sill; he wondered, for an instant, what was the matter with her. But the next moment she had begun to smile and had put out her hand. "Better late than never," she said. "It is very kind of you to come at this hour." "I have just returned from my journey," said Acton. "Ah, very kind, very kind," she repeated, looking about her where to sit. "I went first to the other house," Acton continued. "I expected to find you there." She had sunk into her usual chair; but she got up again, and began to move about the room. Acton had laid down his hat and stick; he was looking at her, conscious that there was in fact a great charm in seeing her again. "I don't know whether I ought to tell you to sit down," she said. "It is too late to begin a visit." "It's too early to end one," Acton declared; "and we needn't mind the beginning." She looked at him again, and, after a moment, dropped once more into her low chair, while he took a place near her. "We are in the middle, then?" she asked. "Was that where we were when you went away? No, I haven't been to the other house." "Not yesterday, nor the day before, eh?" "I don't know how many days it is." "You are tired of it," said Acton. She leaned back in her chair; her arms were folded. "That is a terrible accusation, but I have not the courage to defend myself." "I am not attacking you," said Acton. "I expected something of this kind." "It's a proof of extreme intelligence. I hope you enjoyed your journey." "Not at all," Acton declared. "I would much rather have been here with you." "Now you _are_ attacking me," said the Baroness. "You are contrasting my inconstancy with your own fidelity." "I confess I never get tired of people I like." "Ah, you are not a poor wicked foreign woman, with irritable nerves and a sophisticated mind!" "Something has happened to you since I went away," said Acton, changing his place. "Your going away--that is what has happened to me." "Do you mean to say that you have missed me?" he asked. "If I had meant to say it, it would not be worth your making a note of. I am very dishonest and my compliments are worthless." Acton was silent for some moments. "You have broken down," he said at last. Madame M nster left her chair, and began to move about. "Only for a moment. I shall pull myself together again." "You had better not take it too hard. If you are bored, you needn't be afraid to say so--to me at least." "You shouldn't say such things as that," the Baroness answered. "You should encourage me." "I admire your patience; that is encouraging." "You shouldn't even say that. When you talk of my patience you are disloyal to your own people. Patience implies suffering; and what have I had to suffer?" "Oh, not hunger, not unkindness, certainly," said Acton, laughing. "Nevertheless, we all admire your patience." "You all detest me!" cried the Baroness, with a sudden vehemence, turning her back toward him. "You make it hard," said Acton, getting up, "for a man to say something tender to you." This evening there was something particularly striking and touching about her; an unwonted softness and a look of suppressed emotion. He felt himself suddenly appreciating the fact that she had behaved very well. She had come to this quiet corner of the world under the weight of a cruel indignity, and she had been so gracefully, modestly thankful for the rest she found there. She had joined that simple circle over the way; she had mingled in its plain, provincial talk; she had shared its meagre and savorless pleasures. She had set herself a task, and she had rigidly performed it. She had conformed to the angular conditions of New England life, and she had had the tact and pluck to carry it off as if she liked them. Acton felt a more downright need than he had ever felt before to tell her that he admired her and that she struck him as a very superior woman. All along, hitherto, he had been on his guard with her; he had been cautious, observant, suspicious. But now a certain light tumult in his blood seemed to tell him that a finer degree of confidence in this charming woman would be its own reward. "We don't detest you," he went on. "I don't know what you mean. At any rate, I speak for myself; I don't know anything about the others. Very likely, you detest them for the dull life they make you lead. Really, it would give me a sort of pleasure to hear you say so." Eugenia had been looking at the door on the other side of the room; now she slowly turned her eyes toward Robert Acton. "What can be the motive," she asked, "of a man like you--an honest man, a _galant homme_--in saying so base a thing as that?" "Does it sound very base?" asked Acton, candidly. "I suppose it does, and I thank you for telling me so. Of course, I don't mean it literally." The Baroness stood looking at him. "How do you mean it?" she asked. This question was difficult to answer, and Acton, feeling the least bit foolish, walked to the open window and looked out. He stood there, thinking a moment, and then he turned back. "You know that document that you were to send to Germany," he said. "You called it your 'renunciation.' Did you ever send it?" Madame M nster's eyes expanded; she looked very grave. "What a singular answer to my question!" "Oh, it isn't an answer," said Acton. "I have wished to ask you, many times. I thought it probable you would tell me yourself. The question, on my part, seems abrupt now; but it would be abrupt at any time." The Baroness was silent a moment; and then, "I think I have told you too much!" she said. This declaration appeared to Acton to have a certain force; he had indeed a sense of asking more of her than he offered her. He returned to the window, and watched, for a moment, a little star that twinkled through the lattice of the piazza. There were at any rate offers enough he could make; perhaps he had hitherto not been sufficiently explicit in doing so. "I wish you would ask something of me," he presently said. "Is there nothing I can do for you? If you can't stand this dull life any more, let me amuse you!" The Baroness had sunk once more into a chair, and she had taken up a fan which she held, with both hands, to her mouth. Over the top of the fan her eyes were fixed on him. "You are very strange tonight," she said, with a little laugh. "I will do anything in the world," he rejoined, standing in front of her. "Shouldn't you like to travel about and see something of the country? Won't you go to Niagara? You ought to see Niagara, you know." "With you, do you mean?" "I should be delighted to take you." "You alone?" Acton looked at her, smiling, and yet with a serious air. "Well, yes; we might go alone," he said. "If you were not what you are," she answered, "I should feel insulted." "How do you mean--what I am?" "If you were one of the gentlemen I have been used to all my life. If you were not a queer Bostonian." "If the gentlemen you have been used to have taught you to expect insults," said Acton, "I am glad I am what I am. You had much better come to Niagara." "If you wish to 'amuse' me," the Baroness declared, "you need go to no further expense. You amuse me very effectually." He sat down opposite to her; she still held her fan up to her face, with her eyes only showing above it. There was a moment's silence, and then he said, returning to his former question, "Have you sent that document to Germany?" Again there was a moment's silence. The expressive eyes of Madame M nster seemed, however, half to break it. "I will tell you--at Niagara!" she said. She had hardly spoken when the door at the further end of the room opened--the door upon which, some minutes previous, Eugenia had fixed her gaze. Clifford Wentworth stood there, blushing and looking rather awkward. The Baroness rose, quickly, and Acton, more slowly, did the same. Clifford gave him no greeting; he was looking at Eugenia. "Ah, you were here?" exclaimed Acton. "He was in Felix's studio," said Madame M nster. "He wanted to see his sketches." Clifford looked at Robert Acton, but said nothing; he only fanned himself with his hat. "You chose a bad moment," said Acton; "you hadn't much light." "I hadn't any!" said Clifford, laughing. "Your candle went out?" Eugenia asked. "You should have come back here and lighted it again." Clifford looked at her a moment. "So I have--come back. But I have left the candle!" Eugenia turned away. "You are very stupid, my poor boy. You had better go home." "Well," said Clifford, "good-night!" "Haven't you a word to throw to a man when he has safely returned from a dangerous journey?" Acton asked. "How do you do?" said Clifford. "I thought--I thought you were----" and he paused, looking at the Baroness again. "You thought I was at Newport, eh? So I was--this morning." "Good-night, clever child!" said Madame M nster, over her shoulder. Clifford stared at her--not at all like a clever child; and then, with one of his little facetious growls, took his departure. "What is the matter with him?" asked Acton, when he was gone. "He seemed rather in a muddle." Eugenia, who was near the window, glanced out, listening a moment. "The matter--the matter"--she answered. "But you don't say such things here." "If you mean that he had been drinking a little, you can say that." "He doesn't drink any more. I have cured him. And in return--he's in love with me." It was Acton's turn to stare. He instantly thought of his sister; but he said nothing about her. He began to laugh. "I don't wonder at his passion! But I wonder at his forsaking your society for that of your brother's paint-brushes." Eugenia was silent a little. "He had not been in the studio. I invented that at the moment." "Invented it? For what purpose?" "He has an idea of being romantic. He has adopted the habit of coming to see me at midnight--passing only through the orchard and through Felix's painting-room, which has a door opening that way. It seems to amuse him," added Eugenia, with a little laugh. Acton felt more surprise than he confessed to, for this was a new view of Clifford, whose irregularities had hitherto been quite without the romantic element. He tried to laugh again, but he felt rather too serious, and after a moment's hesitation his seriousness explained itself. "I hope you don't encourage him," he said. "He must not be inconstant to poor Lizzie." "To your sister?" "You know they are decidedly intimate," said Acton. "Ah," cried Eugenia, smiling, "has she--has she----" "I don't know," Acton interrupted, "what she has. But I always supposed that Clifford had a desire to make himself agreeable to her." "Ah, _par exemple!_" the Baroness went on. "The little monster! The next time he becomes sentimental I will him tell that he ought to be ashamed of himself." Acton was silent a moment. "You had better say nothing about it." "I had told him as much already, on general grounds," said the Baroness. "But in this country, you know, the relations of young people are so extraordinary that one is quite at sea. They are not engaged when you would quite say they ought to be. Take Charlotte Wentworth, for instance, and that young ecclesiastic. If I were her father I should insist upon his marrying her; but it appears to be thought there is no urgency. On the other hand, you suddenly learn that a boy of twenty and a little girl who is still with her governess--your sister has no governess? Well, then, who is never away from her mamma--a young couple, in short, between whom you have noticed nothing beyond an exchange of the childish pleasantries characteristic of their age, are on the point of setting up as man and wife." The Baroness spoke with a certain exaggerated volubility which was in contrast with the languid grace that had characterized her manner before Clifford made his appearance. It seemed to Acton that there was a spark of irritation in her eye--a note of irony (as when she spoke of Lizzie being never away from her mother) in her voice. If Madame M nster was irritated, Robert Acton was vaguely mystified; she began to move about the room again, and he looked at her without saying anything. Presently she took out her watch, and, glancing at it, declared that it was three o'clock in the morning and that he must go. "I have not been here an hour," he said, "and they are still sitting up at the other house. You can see the lights. Your brother has not come in." "Oh, at the other house," cried Eugenia, "they are terrible people! I don't know what they may do over there. I am a quiet little humdrum woman; I have rigid rules and I keep them. One of them is not to have visitors in the small hours--especially clever men like you. So good-night!" Decidedly, the Baroness was incisive; and though Acton bade her good-night and departed, he was still a good deal mystified. The next day Clifford Wentworth came to see Lizzie, and Acton, who was at home and saw him pass through the garden, took note of the circumstance. He had a natural desire to make it tally with Madame M nster's account of Clifford's disaffection; but his ingenuity, finding itself unequal to the task, resolved at last to ask help of the young man's candor. He waited till he saw him going away, and then he went out and overtook him in the grounds. "I wish very much you would answer me a question," Acton said. "What were you doing, last night, at Madame M nster's?" Clifford began to laugh and to blush, by no means like a young man with a romantic secret. "What did she tell you?" he asked. "That is exactly what I don't want to say." "Well, I want to tell you the same," said Clifford; "and unless I know it perhaps I can't." They had stopped in a garden path; Acton looked hard at his rosy young kinsman. "She said she couldn't fancy what had got into you; you appeared to have taken a violent dislike to her." Clifford stared, looking a little alarmed. "Oh, come," he growled, "you don't mean that!" "And that when--for common civility's sake--you came occasionally to the house you left her alone and spent your time in Felix's studio, under pretext of looking at his sketches." "Oh, come!" growled Clifford, again. "Did you ever know me to tell an untruth?" "Yes, lots of them!" said Clifford, seeing an opening, out of the discussion, for his sarcastic powers. "Well," he presently added, "I thought you were my father." "You knew someone was there?" "We heard you coming in." Acton meditated. "You had been with the Baroness, then?" "I was in the parlor. We heard your step outside. I thought it was my father." "And on that," asked Acton, "you ran away?" "She told me to go--to go out by the studio." Acton meditated more intensely; if there had been a chair at hand he would have sat down. "Why should she wish you not to meet your father?" "Well," said Clifford, "father doesn't like to see me there." Acton looked askance at his companion and forbore to make any comment upon this assertion. "Has he said so," he asked, "to the Baroness?" "Well, I hope not," said Clifford. "He hasn't said so--in so many words--to me. But I know it worries him; and I want to stop worrying him. The Baroness knows it, and she wants me to stop, too." "To stop coming to see her?" "I don't know about that; but to stop worrying father. Eugenia knows everything," Clifford added, with an air of knowingness of his own. "Ah," said Acton, interrogatively, "Eugenia knows everything?" "She knew it was not father coming in." "Then why did you go?" Clifford blushed and laughed afresh. "Well, I was afraid it was. And besides, she told me to go, at any rate." "Did she think it was I?" Acton asked. "She didn't say so." Again Robert Acton reflected. "But you didn't go," he presently said; "you came back." "I couldn't get out of the studio," Clifford rejoined. "The door was locked, and Felix has nailed some planks across the lower half of the confounded windows to make the light come in from above. So they were no use. I waited there a good while, and then, suddenly, I felt ashamed. I didn't want to be hiding away from my own father. I couldn't stand it any longer. I bolted out, and when I found it was you I was a little flurried. But Eugenia carried it off, didn't she?" Clifford added, in the tone of a young humorist whose perception had not been permanently clouded by the sense of his own discomfort. "Beautifully!" said Acton. "Especially," he continued, "when one remembers that you were very imprudent and that she must have been a good deal annoyed." "Oh," cried Clifford, with the indifference of a young man who feels that however he may have failed of felicity in behavior he is extremely just in his impressions, "Eugenia doesn't care for anything!" Acton hesitated a moment. "Thank you for telling me this," he said at last. And then, laying his hand on Clifford's shoulder, he added, "Tell me one thing more: are you by chance a little in love with the Baroness?" "No, sir!" said Clifford, almost shaking off his hand. CHAPTER X The first sunday that followed Robert Acton's return from Newport witnessed a change in the brilliant weather that had long prevailed. The rain began to fall and the day was cold and dreary. Mr. Wentworth and his daughters put on overshoes and went to church, and Felix Young, without overshoes, went also, holding an umbrella over Gertrude. It is to be feared that, in the whole observance, this was the privilege he most highly valued. The Baroness remained at home; she was in neither a cheerful nor a devotional mood. She had, however, never been, during her residence in the United States, what is called a regular attendant at divine service; and on this particular Sunday morning of which I began with speaking she stood at the window of her little drawing-room, watching the long arm of a rose tree that was attached to her piazza, but a portion of which had disengaged itself, sway to and fro, shake and gesticulate, against the dusky drizzle of the sky. Every now and then, in a gust of wind, the rose tree scattered a shower of water-drops against the window-pane; it appeared to have a kind of human movement--a menacing, warning intention. The room was very cold; Madame M nster put on a shawl and walked about. Then she determined to have some fire; and summoning her ancient negress, the contrast of whose polished ebony and whose crimson turban had been at first a source of satisfaction to her, she made arrangements for the production of a crackling flame. This old woman's name was Azarina. The Baroness had begun by thinking that there would be a savory wildness in her talk, and, for amusement, she had encouraged her to chatter. But Azarina was dry and prim; her conversation was anything but African; she reminded Eugenia of the tiresome old ladies she met in society. She knew, however, how to make a fire; so that after she had laid the logs, Eugenia, who was terribly bored, found a quarter of an hour's entertainment in sitting and watching them blaze and sputter. She had thought it very likely Robert Acton would come and see her; she had not met him since that infelicitous evening. But the morning waned without his coming; several times she thought she heard his step on the piazza; but it was only a window-shutter shaking in a rain-gust. The Baroness, since the beginning of that episode in her career of which a slight sketch has been attempted in these pages, had had many moments of irritation. But today her irritation had a peculiar keenness; it appeared to feed upon itself. It urged her to do something; but it suggested no particularly profitable line of action. If she could have done something at the moment, on the spot, she would have stepped upon a European steamer and turned her back, with a kind of rapture, upon that profoundly mortifying failure, her visit to her American relations. It is not exactly apparent why she should have termed this enterprise a failure, inasmuch as she had been treated with the highest distinction for which allowance had been made in American institutions. Her irritation came, at bottom, from the sense, which, always present, had suddenly grown acute, that the social soil on this big, vague continent was somehow not adapted for growing those plants whose fragrance she especially inclined to inhale and by which she liked to see herself surrounded--a species of vegetation for which she carried a collection of seedlings, as we may say, in her pocket. She found her chief happiness in the sense of exerting a certain power and making a certain impression; and now she felt the annoyance of a rather wearied swimmer who, on nearing shore, to land, finds a smooth straight wall of rock when he had counted upon a clean firm beach. Her power, in the American air, seemed to have lost its prehensile attributes; the smooth wall of rock was insurmountable. _"Surely je n'en suis pas l ,"_ she said to herself, "that I let it make me uncomfortable that a Mr. Robert Acton shouldn't honor me with a visit!" Yet she was vexed that he had not come; and she was vexed at her vexation. Her brother, at least, came in, stamping in the hall and shaking the wet from his coat. In a moment he entered the room, with a glow in his cheek and half-a-dozen rain-drops glistening on his moustache. "Ah, you have a fire," he said. _"Les beaux jours sont pass s,"_ replied the Baroness. "Never, never! They have only begun," Felix declared, planting himself before the hearth. He turned his back to the fire, placed his hands behind him, extended his legs and looked away through the window with an expression of face which seemed to denote the perception of rose-color even in the tints of a wet Sunday. His sister, from her chair, looked up at him, watching him; and what she saw in his face was not grateful to her present mood. She was puzzled by many things, but her brother's disposition was a frequent source of wonder to her. I say frequent and not constant, for there were long periods during which she gave her attention to other problems. Sometimes she had said to herself that his happy temper, his eternal gaiety, was an affectation, a _pose_; but she was vaguely conscious that during the present summer he had been a highly successful comedian. They had never yet had an explanation; she had not known the need of one. Felix was presumably following the bent of his disinterested genius, and she felt that she had no advice to give him that he would understand. With this, there was always a certain element of comfort about Felix--the assurance that he would not interfere. He was very delicate, this pure-minded Felix; in effect, he was her brother, and Madame M nster felt that there was a great propriety, every way, in that. It is true that Felix was delicate; he was not fond of explanations with his sister; this was one of the very few things in the world about which he was uncomfortable. But now he was not thinking of anything uncomfortable. "Dear brother," said Eugenia at last, "do stop making _les yeux doux_ at the rain." "With pleasure. I will make them at you!" answered Felix. "How much longer," asked Eugenia, in a moment, "do you propose to remain in this lovely spot?" Felix stared. "Do you want to go away--already?" "'Already' is delicious. I am not so happy as you." Felix dropped into a chair, looking at the fire. "The fact is I _am_ happy," he said in his light, clear tone. "And do you propose to spend your life in making love to Gertrude Wentworth?" "Yes!" said Felix, smiling sidewise at his sister. The Baroness returned his glance, much more gravely; and then, "Do you like her?" she asked. "Don't you?" Felix demanded. The Baroness was silent a moment. "I will answer you in the words of the gentleman who was asked if he liked music: _'Je ne la crains pas!'_" "She admires you immensely," said Felix. "I don't care for that. Other women should not admire one." "They should dislike you?" Again Madame M nster hesitated. "They should hate me! It's a measure of the time I have been losing here that they don't." "No time is lost in which one has been happy!" said Felix, with a bright sententiousness which may well have been a little irritating. "And in which," rejoined his sister, with a harsher laugh, "one has secured the affections of a young lady with a fortune!" Felix explained, very candidly and seriously. "I have secured Gertrude's affection, but I am by no means sure that I have secured her fortune. That may come--or it may not." "Ah, well, it _may!_ That's the great point." "It depends upon her father. He doesn't smile upon our union. You know he wants her to marry Mr. Brand." "I know nothing about it!" cried the Baroness. "Please to put on a log." Felix complied with her request and sat watching the quickening of the flame. Presently his sister added, "And you propose to elope with mademoiselle?" "By no means. I don't wish to do anything that's disagreeable to Mr. Wentworth. He has been far too kind to us." "But you must choose between pleasing yourself and pleasing him." "I want to please everyone!" exclaimed Felix, joyously. "I have a good conscience. I made up my mind at the outset that it was not my place to make love to Gertrude." "So, to simplify matters, she made love to you!" Felix looked at his sister with sudden gravity. "You say you are not afraid of her," he said. "But perhaps you ought to be--a little. She's a very clever person." "I begin to see it!" cried the Baroness. Her brother, making no rejoinder, leaned back in his chair, and there was a long silence. At last, with an altered accent, Madame M nster put another question. "You expect, at any rate, to marry?" "I shall be greatly disappointed if we don't." "A disappointment or two will do you good!" the Baroness declared. "And, afterwards, do you mean to turn American?" "It seems to me I am a very good American already. But we shall go to Europe. Gertrude wants extremely to see the world." "Ah, like me, when I came here!" said the Baroness, with a little laugh. "No, not like you," Felix rejoined, looking at his sister with a certain gentle seriousness. While he looked at her she rose from her chair, and he also got up. "Gertrude is not at all like you," he went on; "but in her own way she is almost as clever." He paused a moment; his soul was full of an agreeable feeling and of a lively disposition to express it. His sister, to his spiritual vision, was always like the lunar disk when only a part of it is lighted. The shadow on this bright surface seemed to him to expand and to contract; but whatever its proportions, he always appreciated the moonlight. He looked at the Baroness, and then he kissed her. "I am very much in | instant | How many times the word 'instant' appears in the text? | 1 |
us," said Acton. "That's what we must keep hold of!" He was too impatient to see Madame M nster again to wonder what Mr. Wentworth was talking about. Nevertheless, after he had passed out of the house and traversed the garden and the little piece of road that separated him from Eugenia's provisional residence, he stopped a moment outside. He stood in her little garden; the long window of her parlor was open, and he could see the white curtains, with the lamp-light shining through them, swaying softly to and fro in the warm night wind. There was a sort of excitement in the idea of seeing Madame M nster again; he became aware that his heart was beating rather faster than usual. It was this that made him stop, with a half-amused surprise. But in a moment he went along the piazza, and, approaching the open window, tapped upon its lintel with his stick. He could see the Baroness within; she was standing in the middle of the room. She came to the window and pulled aside the curtain; then she stood looking at him a moment. She was not smiling; she seemed serious. _"Mais entrez donc!"_ she said at last. Acton passed in across the window-sill; he wondered, for an instant, what was the matter with her. But the next moment she had begun to smile and had put out her hand. "Better late than never," she said. "It is very kind of you to come at this hour." "I have just returned from my journey," said Acton. "Ah, very kind, very kind," she repeated, looking about her where to sit. "I went first to the other house," Acton continued. "I expected to find you there." She had sunk into her usual chair; but she got up again, and began to move about the room. Acton had laid down his hat and stick; he was looking at her, conscious that there was in fact a great charm in seeing her again. "I don't know whether I ought to tell you to sit down," she said. "It is too late to begin a visit." "It's too early to end one," Acton declared; "and we needn't mind the beginning." She looked at him again, and, after a moment, dropped once more into her low chair, while he took a place near her. "We are in the middle, then?" she asked. "Was that where we were when you went away? No, I haven't been to the other house." "Not yesterday, nor the day before, eh?" "I don't know how many days it is." "You are tired of it," said Acton. She leaned back in her chair; her arms were folded. "That is a terrible accusation, but I have not the courage to defend myself." "I am not attacking you," said Acton. "I expected something of this kind." "It's a proof of extreme intelligence. I hope you enjoyed your journey." "Not at all," Acton declared. "I would much rather have been here with you." "Now you _are_ attacking me," said the Baroness. "You are contrasting my inconstancy with your own fidelity." "I confess I never get tired of people I like." "Ah, you are not a poor wicked foreign woman, with irritable nerves and a sophisticated mind!" "Something has happened to you since I went away," said Acton, changing his place. "Your going away--that is what has happened to me." "Do you mean to say that you have missed me?" he asked. "If I had meant to say it, it would not be worth your making a note of. I am very dishonest and my compliments are worthless." Acton was silent for some moments. "You have broken down," he said at last. Madame M nster left her chair, and began to move about. "Only for a moment. I shall pull myself together again." "You had better not take it too hard. If you are bored, you needn't be afraid to say so--to me at least." "You shouldn't say such things as that," the Baroness answered. "You should encourage me." "I admire your patience; that is encouraging." "You shouldn't even say that. When you talk of my patience you are disloyal to your own people. Patience implies suffering; and what have I had to suffer?" "Oh, not hunger, not unkindness, certainly," said Acton, laughing. "Nevertheless, we all admire your patience." "You all detest me!" cried the Baroness, with a sudden vehemence, turning her back toward him. "You make it hard," said Acton, getting up, "for a man to say something tender to you." This evening there was something particularly striking and touching about her; an unwonted softness and a look of suppressed emotion. He felt himself suddenly appreciating the fact that she had behaved very well. She had come to this quiet corner of the world under the weight of a cruel indignity, and she had been so gracefully, modestly thankful for the rest she found there. She had joined that simple circle over the way; she had mingled in its plain, provincial talk; she had shared its meagre and savorless pleasures. She had set herself a task, and she had rigidly performed it. She had conformed to the angular conditions of New England life, and she had had the tact and pluck to carry it off as if she liked them. Acton felt a more downright need than he had ever felt before to tell her that he admired her and that she struck him as a very superior woman. All along, hitherto, he had been on his guard with her; he had been cautious, observant, suspicious. But now a certain light tumult in his blood seemed to tell him that a finer degree of confidence in this charming woman would be its own reward. "We don't detest you," he went on. "I don't know what you mean. At any rate, I speak for myself; I don't know anything about the others. Very likely, you detest them for the dull life they make you lead. Really, it would give me a sort of pleasure to hear you say so." Eugenia had been looking at the door on the other side of the room; now she slowly turned her eyes toward Robert Acton. "What can be the motive," she asked, "of a man like you--an honest man, a _galant homme_--in saying so base a thing as that?" "Does it sound very base?" asked Acton, candidly. "I suppose it does, and I thank you for telling me so. Of course, I don't mean it literally." The Baroness stood looking at him. "How do you mean it?" she asked. This question was difficult to answer, and Acton, feeling the least bit foolish, walked to the open window and looked out. He stood there, thinking a moment, and then he turned back. "You know that document that you were to send to Germany," he said. "You called it your 'renunciation.' Did you ever send it?" Madame M nster's eyes expanded; she looked very grave. "What a singular answer to my question!" "Oh, it isn't an answer," said Acton. "I have wished to ask you, many times. I thought it probable you would tell me yourself. The question, on my part, seems abrupt now; but it would be abrupt at any time." The Baroness was silent a moment; and then, "I think I have told you too much!" she said. This declaration appeared to Acton to have a certain force; he had indeed a sense of asking more of her than he offered her. He returned to the window, and watched, for a moment, a little star that twinkled through the lattice of the piazza. There were at any rate offers enough he could make; perhaps he had hitherto not been sufficiently explicit in doing so. "I wish you would ask something of me," he presently said. "Is there nothing I can do for you? If you can't stand this dull life any more, let me amuse you!" The Baroness had sunk once more into a chair, and she had taken up a fan which she held, with both hands, to her mouth. Over the top of the fan her eyes were fixed on him. "You are very strange tonight," she said, with a little laugh. "I will do anything in the world," he rejoined, standing in front of her. "Shouldn't you like to travel about and see something of the country? Won't you go to Niagara? You ought to see Niagara, you know." "With you, do you mean?" "I should be delighted to take you." "You alone?" Acton looked at her, smiling, and yet with a serious air. "Well, yes; we might go alone," he said. "If you were not what you are," she answered, "I should feel insulted." "How do you mean--what I am?" "If you were one of the gentlemen I have been used to all my life. If you were not a queer Bostonian." "If the gentlemen you have been used to have taught you to expect insults," said Acton, "I am glad I am what I am. You had much better come to Niagara." "If you wish to 'amuse' me," the Baroness declared, "you need go to no further expense. You amuse me very effectually." He sat down opposite to her; she still held her fan up to her face, with her eyes only showing above it. There was a moment's silence, and then he said, returning to his former question, "Have you sent that document to Germany?" Again there was a moment's silence. The expressive eyes of Madame M nster seemed, however, half to break it. "I will tell you--at Niagara!" she said. She had hardly spoken when the door at the further end of the room opened--the door upon which, some minutes previous, Eugenia had fixed her gaze. Clifford Wentworth stood there, blushing and looking rather awkward. The Baroness rose, quickly, and Acton, more slowly, did the same. Clifford gave him no greeting; he was looking at Eugenia. "Ah, you were here?" exclaimed Acton. "He was in Felix's studio," said Madame M nster. "He wanted to see his sketches." Clifford looked at Robert Acton, but said nothing; he only fanned himself with his hat. "You chose a bad moment," said Acton; "you hadn't much light." "I hadn't any!" said Clifford, laughing. "Your candle went out?" Eugenia asked. "You should have come back here and lighted it again." Clifford looked at her a moment. "So I have--come back. But I have left the candle!" Eugenia turned away. "You are very stupid, my poor boy. You had better go home." "Well," said Clifford, "good-night!" "Haven't you a word to throw to a man when he has safely returned from a dangerous journey?" Acton asked. "How do you do?" said Clifford. "I thought--I thought you were----" and he paused, looking at the Baroness again. "You thought I was at Newport, eh? So I was--this morning." "Good-night, clever child!" said Madame M nster, over her shoulder. Clifford stared at her--not at all like a clever child; and then, with one of his little facetious growls, took his departure. "What is the matter with him?" asked Acton, when he was gone. "He seemed rather in a muddle." Eugenia, who was near the window, glanced out, listening a moment. "The matter--the matter"--she answered. "But you don't say such things here." "If you mean that he had been drinking a little, you can say that." "He doesn't drink any more. I have cured him. And in return--he's in love with me." It was Acton's turn to stare. He instantly thought of his sister; but he said nothing about her. He began to laugh. "I don't wonder at his passion! But I wonder at his forsaking your society for that of your brother's paint-brushes." Eugenia was silent a little. "He had not been in the studio. I invented that at the moment." "Invented it? For what purpose?" "He has an idea of being romantic. He has adopted the habit of coming to see me at midnight--passing only through the orchard and through Felix's painting-room, which has a door opening that way. It seems to amuse him," added Eugenia, with a little laugh. Acton felt more surprise than he confessed to, for this was a new view of Clifford, whose irregularities had hitherto been quite without the romantic element. He tried to laugh again, but he felt rather too serious, and after a moment's hesitation his seriousness explained itself. "I hope you don't encourage him," he said. "He must not be inconstant to poor Lizzie." "To your sister?" "You know they are decidedly intimate," said Acton. "Ah," cried Eugenia, smiling, "has she--has she----" "I don't know," Acton interrupted, "what she has. But I always supposed that Clifford had a desire to make himself agreeable to her." "Ah, _par exemple!_" the Baroness went on. "The little monster! The next time he becomes sentimental I will him tell that he ought to be ashamed of himself." Acton was silent a moment. "You had better say nothing about it." "I had told him as much already, on general grounds," said the Baroness. "But in this country, you know, the relations of young people are so extraordinary that one is quite at sea. They are not engaged when you would quite say they ought to be. Take Charlotte Wentworth, for instance, and that young ecclesiastic. If I were her father I should insist upon his marrying her; but it appears to be thought there is no urgency. On the other hand, you suddenly learn that a boy of twenty and a little girl who is still with her governess--your sister has no governess? Well, then, who is never away from her mamma--a young couple, in short, between whom you have noticed nothing beyond an exchange of the childish pleasantries characteristic of their age, are on the point of setting up as man and wife." The Baroness spoke with a certain exaggerated volubility which was in contrast with the languid grace that had characterized her manner before Clifford made his appearance. It seemed to Acton that there was a spark of irritation in her eye--a note of irony (as when she spoke of Lizzie being never away from her mother) in her voice. If Madame M nster was irritated, Robert Acton was vaguely mystified; she began to move about the room again, and he looked at her without saying anything. Presently she took out her watch, and, glancing at it, declared that it was three o'clock in the morning and that he must go. "I have not been here an hour," he said, "and they are still sitting up at the other house. You can see the lights. Your brother has not come in." "Oh, at the other house," cried Eugenia, "they are terrible people! I don't know what they may do over there. I am a quiet little humdrum woman; I have rigid rules and I keep them. One of them is not to have visitors in the small hours--especially clever men like you. So good-night!" Decidedly, the Baroness was incisive; and though Acton bade her good-night and departed, he was still a good deal mystified. The next day Clifford Wentworth came to see Lizzie, and Acton, who was at home and saw him pass through the garden, took note of the circumstance. He had a natural desire to make it tally with Madame M nster's account of Clifford's disaffection; but his ingenuity, finding itself unequal to the task, resolved at last to ask help of the young man's candor. He waited till he saw him going away, and then he went out and overtook him in the grounds. "I wish very much you would answer me a question," Acton said. "What were you doing, last night, at Madame M nster's?" Clifford began to laugh and to blush, by no means like a young man with a romantic secret. "What did she tell you?" he asked. "That is exactly what I don't want to say." "Well, I want to tell you the same," said Clifford; "and unless I know it perhaps I can't." They had stopped in a garden path; Acton looked hard at his rosy young kinsman. "She said she couldn't fancy what had got into you; you appeared to have taken a violent dislike to her." Clifford stared, looking a little alarmed. "Oh, come," he growled, "you don't mean that!" "And that when--for common civility's sake--you came occasionally to the house you left her alone and spent your time in Felix's studio, under pretext of looking at his sketches." "Oh, come!" growled Clifford, again. "Did you ever know me to tell an untruth?" "Yes, lots of them!" said Clifford, seeing an opening, out of the discussion, for his sarcastic powers. "Well," he presently added, "I thought you were my father." "You knew someone was there?" "We heard you coming in." Acton meditated. "You had been with the Baroness, then?" "I was in the parlor. We heard your step outside. I thought it was my father." "And on that," asked Acton, "you ran away?" "She told me to go--to go out by the studio." Acton meditated more intensely; if there had been a chair at hand he would have sat down. "Why should she wish you not to meet your father?" "Well," said Clifford, "father doesn't like to see me there." Acton looked askance at his companion and forbore to make any comment upon this assertion. "Has he said so," he asked, "to the Baroness?" "Well, I hope not," said Clifford. "He hasn't said so--in so many words--to me. But I know it worries him; and I want to stop worrying him. The Baroness knows it, and she wants me to stop, too." "To stop coming to see her?" "I don't know about that; but to stop worrying father. Eugenia knows everything," Clifford added, with an air of knowingness of his own. "Ah," said Acton, interrogatively, "Eugenia knows everything?" "She knew it was not father coming in." "Then why did you go?" Clifford blushed and laughed afresh. "Well, I was afraid it was. And besides, she told me to go, at any rate." "Did she think it was I?" Acton asked. "She didn't say so." Again Robert Acton reflected. "But you didn't go," he presently said; "you came back." "I couldn't get out of the studio," Clifford rejoined. "The door was locked, and Felix has nailed some planks across the lower half of the confounded windows to make the light come in from above. So they were no use. I waited there a good while, and then, suddenly, I felt ashamed. I didn't want to be hiding away from my own father. I couldn't stand it any longer. I bolted out, and when I found it was you I was a little flurried. But Eugenia carried it off, didn't she?" Clifford added, in the tone of a young humorist whose perception had not been permanently clouded by the sense of his own discomfort. "Beautifully!" said Acton. "Especially," he continued, "when one remembers that you were very imprudent and that she must have been a good deal annoyed." "Oh," cried Clifford, with the indifference of a young man who feels that however he may have failed of felicity in behavior he is extremely just in his impressions, "Eugenia doesn't care for anything!" Acton hesitated a moment. "Thank you for telling me this," he said at last. And then, laying his hand on Clifford's shoulder, he added, "Tell me one thing more: are you by chance a little in love with the Baroness?" "No, sir!" said Clifford, almost shaking off his hand. CHAPTER X The first sunday that followed Robert Acton's return from Newport witnessed a change in the brilliant weather that had long prevailed. The rain began to fall and the day was cold and dreary. Mr. Wentworth and his daughters put on overshoes and went to church, and Felix Young, without overshoes, went also, holding an umbrella over Gertrude. It is to be feared that, in the whole observance, this was the privilege he most highly valued. The Baroness remained at home; she was in neither a cheerful nor a devotional mood. She had, however, never been, during her residence in the United States, what is called a regular attendant at divine service; and on this particular Sunday morning of which I began with speaking she stood at the window of her little drawing-room, watching the long arm of a rose tree that was attached to her piazza, but a portion of which had disengaged itself, sway to and fro, shake and gesticulate, against the dusky drizzle of the sky. Every now and then, in a gust of wind, the rose tree scattered a shower of water-drops against the window-pane; it appeared to have a kind of human movement--a menacing, warning intention. The room was very cold; Madame M nster put on a shawl and walked about. Then she determined to have some fire; and summoning her ancient negress, the contrast of whose polished ebony and whose crimson turban had been at first a source of satisfaction to her, she made arrangements for the production of a crackling flame. This old woman's name was Azarina. The Baroness had begun by thinking that there would be a savory wildness in her talk, and, for amusement, she had encouraged her to chatter. But Azarina was dry and prim; her conversation was anything but African; she reminded Eugenia of the tiresome old ladies she met in society. She knew, however, how to make a fire; so that after she had laid the logs, Eugenia, who was terribly bored, found a quarter of an hour's entertainment in sitting and watching them blaze and sputter. She had thought it very likely Robert Acton would come and see her; she had not met him since that infelicitous evening. But the morning waned without his coming; several times she thought she heard his step on the piazza; but it was only a window-shutter shaking in a rain-gust. The Baroness, since the beginning of that episode in her career of which a slight sketch has been attempted in these pages, had had many moments of irritation. But today her irritation had a peculiar keenness; it appeared to feed upon itself. It urged her to do something; but it suggested no particularly profitable line of action. If she could have done something at the moment, on the spot, she would have stepped upon a European steamer and turned her back, with a kind of rapture, upon that profoundly mortifying failure, her visit to her American relations. It is not exactly apparent why she should have termed this enterprise a failure, inasmuch as she had been treated with the highest distinction for which allowance had been made in American institutions. Her irritation came, at bottom, from the sense, which, always present, had suddenly grown acute, that the social soil on this big, vague continent was somehow not adapted for growing those plants whose fragrance she especially inclined to inhale and by which she liked to see herself surrounded--a species of vegetation for which she carried a collection of seedlings, as we may say, in her pocket. She found her chief happiness in the sense of exerting a certain power and making a certain impression; and now she felt the annoyance of a rather wearied swimmer who, on nearing shore, to land, finds a smooth straight wall of rock when he had counted upon a clean firm beach. Her power, in the American air, seemed to have lost its prehensile attributes; the smooth wall of rock was insurmountable. _"Surely je n'en suis pas l ,"_ she said to herself, "that I let it make me uncomfortable that a Mr. Robert Acton shouldn't honor me with a visit!" Yet she was vexed that he had not come; and she was vexed at her vexation. Her brother, at least, came in, stamping in the hall and shaking the wet from his coat. In a moment he entered the room, with a glow in his cheek and half-a-dozen rain-drops glistening on his moustache. "Ah, you have a fire," he said. _"Les beaux jours sont pass s,"_ replied the Baroness. "Never, never! They have only begun," Felix declared, planting himself before the hearth. He turned his back to the fire, placed his hands behind him, extended his legs and looked away through the window with an expression of face which seemed to denote the perception of rose-color even in the tints of a wet Sunday. His sister, from her chair, looked up at him, watching him; and what she saw in his face was not grateful to her present mood. She was puzzled by many things, but her brother's disposition was a frequent source of wonder to her. I say frequent and not constant, for there were long periods during which she gave her attention to other problems. Sometimes she had said to herself that his happy temper, his eternal gaiety, was an affectation, a _pose_; but she was vaguely conscious that during the present summer he had been a highly successful comedian. They had never yet had an explanation; she had not known the need of one. Felix was presumably following the bent of his disinterested genius, and she felt that she had no advice to give him that he would understand. With this, there was always a certain element of comfort about Felix--the assurance that he would not interfere. He was very delicate, this pure-minded Felix; in effect, he was her brother, and Madame M nster felt that there was a great propriety, every way, in that. It is true that Felix was delicate; he was not fond of explanations with his sister; this was one of the very few things in the world about which he was uncomfortable. But now he was not thinking of anything uncomfortable. "Dear brother," said Eugenia at last, "do stop making _les yeux doux_ at the rain." "With pleasure. I will make them at you!" answered Felix. "How much longer," asked Eugenia, in a moment, "do you propose to remain in this lovely spot?" Felix stared. "Do you want to go away--already?" "'Already' is delicious. I am not so happy as you." Felix dropped into a chair, looking at the fire. "The fact is I _am_ happy," he said in his light, clear tone. "And do you propose to spend your life in making love to Gertrude Wentworth?" "Yes!" said Felix, smiling sidewise at his sister. The Baroness returned his glance, much more gravely; and then, "Do you like her?" she asked. "Don't you?" Felix demanded. The Baroness was silent a moment. "I will answer you in the words of the gentleman who was asked if he liked music: _'Je ne la crains pas!'_" "She admires you immensely," said Felix. "I don't care for that. Other women should not admire one." "They should dislike you?" Again Madame M nster hesitated. "They should hate me! It's a measure of the time I have been losing here that they don't." "No time is lost in which one has been happy!" said Felix, with a bright sententiousness which may well have been a little irritating. "And in which," rejoined his sister, with a harsher laugh, "one has secured the affections of a young lady with a fortune!" Felix explained, very candidly and seriously. "I have secured Gertrude's affection, but I am by no means sure that I have secured her fortune. That may come--or it may not." "Ah, well, it _may!_ That's the great point." "It depends upon her father. He doesn't smile upon our union. You know he wants her to marry Mr. Brand." "I know nothing about it!" cried the Baroness. "Please to put on a log." Felix complied with her request and sat watching the quickening of the flame. Presently his sister added, "And you propose to elope with mademoiselle?" "By no means. I don't wish to do anything that's disagreeable to Mr. Wentworth. He has been far too kind to us." "But you must choose between pleasing yourself and pleasing him." "I want to please everyone!" exclaimed Felix, joyously. "I have a good conscience. I made up my mind at the outset that it was not my place to make love to Gertrude." "So, to simplify matters, she made love to you!" Felix looked at his sister with sudden gravity. "You say you are not afraid of her," he said. "But perhaps you ought to be--a little. She's a very clever person." "I begin to see it!" cried the Baroness. Her brother, making no rejoinder, leaned back in his chair, and there was a long silence. At last, with an altered accent, Madame M nster put another question. "You expect, at any rate, to marry?" "I shall be greatly disappointed if we don't." "A disappointment or two will do you good!" the Baroness declared. "And, afterwards, do you mean to turn American?" "It seems to me I am a very good American already. But we shall go to Europe. Gertrude wants extremely to see the world." "Ah, like me, when I came here!" said the Baroness, with a little laugh. "No, not like you," Felix rejoined, looking at his sister with a certain gentle seriousness. While he looked at her she rose from her chair, and he also got up. "Gertrude is not at all like you," he went on; "but in her own way she is almost as clever." He paused a moment; his soul was full of an agreeable feeling and of a lively disposition to express it. His sister, to his spiritual vision, was always like the lunar disk when only a part of it is lighted. The shadow on this bright surface seemed to him to expand and to contract; but whatever its proportions, he always appreciated the moonlight. He looked at the Baroness, and then he kissed her. "I am very much in | turning | How many times the word 'turning' appears in the text? | 1 |
us," said Acton. "That's what we must keep hold of!" He was too impatient to see Madame M nster again to wonder what Mr. Wentworth was talking about. Nevertheless, after he had passed out of the house and traversed the garden and the little piece of road that separated him from Eugenia's provisional residence, he stopped a moment outside. He stood in her little garden; the long window of her parlor was open, and he could see the white curtains, with the lamp-light shining through them, swaying softly to and fro in the warm night wind. There was a sort of excitement in the idea of seeing Madame M nster again; he became aware that his heart was beating rather faster than usual. It was this that made him stop, with a half-amused surprise. But in a moment he went along the piazza, and, approaching the open window, tapped upon its lintel with his stick. He could see the Baroness within; she was standing in the middle of the room. She came to the window and pulled aside the curtain; then she stood looking at him a moment. She was not smiling; she seemed serious. _"Mais entrez donc!"_ she said at last. Acton passed in across the window-sill; he wondered, for an instant, what was the matter with her. But the next moment she had begun to smile and had put out her hand. "Better late than never," she said. "It is very kind of you to come at this hour." "I have just returned from my journey," said Acton. "Ah, very kind, very kind," she repeated, looking about her where to sit. "I went first to the other house," Acton continued. "I expected to find you there." She had sunk into her usual chair; but she got up again, and began to move about the room. Acton had laid down his hat and stick; he was looking at her, conscious that there was in fact a great charm in seeing her again. "I don't know whether I ought to tell you to sit down," she said. "It is too late to begin a visit." "It's too early to end one," Acton declared; "and we needn't mind the beginning." She looked at him again, and, after a moment, dropped once more into her low chair, while he took a place near her. "We are in the middle, then?" she asked. "Was that where we were when you went away? No, I haven't been to the other house." "Not yesterday, nor the day before, eh?" "I don't know how many days it is." "You are tired of it," said Acton. She leaned back in her chair; her arms were folded. "That is a terrible accusation, but I have not the courage to defend myself." "I am not attacking you," said Acton. "I expected something of this kind." "It's a proof of extreme intelligence. I hope you enjoyed your journey." "Not at all," Acton declared. "I would much rather have been here with you." "Now you _are_ attacking me," said the Baroness. "You are contrasting my inconstancy with your own fidelity." "I confess I never get tired of people I like." "Ah, you are not a poor wicked foreign woman, with irritable nerves and a sophisticated mind!" "Something has happened to you since I went away," said Acton, changing his place. "Your going away--that is what has happened to me." "Do you mean to say that you have missed me?" he asked. "If I had meant to say it, it would not be worth your making a note of. I am very dishonest and my compliments are worthless." Acton was silent for some moments. "You have broken down," he said at last. Madame M nster left her chair, and began to move about. "Only for a moment. I shall pull myself together again." "You had better not take it too hard. If you are bored, you needn't be afraid to say so--to me at least." "You shouldn't say such things as that," the Baroness answered. "You should encourage me." "I admire your patience; that is encouraging." "You shouldn't even say that. When you talk of my patience you are disloyal to your own people. Patience implies suffering; and what have I had to suffer?" "Oh, not hunger, not unkindness, certainly," said Acton, laughing. "Nevertheless, we all admire your patience." "You all detest me!" cried the Baroness, with a sudden vehemence, turning her back toward him. "You make it hard," said Acton, getting up, "for a man to say something tender to you." This evening there was something particularly striking and touching about her; an unwonted softness and a look of suppressed emotion. He felt himself suddenly appreciating the fact that she had behaved very well. She had come to this quiet corner of the world under the weight of a cruel indignity, and she had been so gracefully, modestly thankful for the rest she found there. She had joined that simple circle over the way; she had mingled in its plain, provincial talk; she had shared its meagre and savorless pleasures. She had set herself a task, and she had rigidly performed it. She had conformed to the angular conditions of New England life, and she had had the tact and pluck to carry it off as if she liked them. Acton felt a more downright need than he had ever felt before to tell her that he admired her and that she struck him as a very superior woman. All along, hitherto, he had been on his guard with her; he had been cautious, observant, suspicious. But now a certain light tumult in his blood seemed to tell him that a finer degree of confidence in this charming woman would be its own reward. "We don't detest you," he went on. "I don't know what you mean. At any rate, I speak for myself; I don't know anything about the others. Very likely, you detest them for the dull life they make you lead. Really, it would give me a sort of pleasure to hear you say so." Eugenia had been looking at the door on the other side of the room; now she slowly turned her eyes toward Robert Acton. "What can be the motive," she asked, "of a man like you--an honest man, a _galant homme_--in saying so base a thing as that?" "Does it sound very base?" asked Acton, candidly. "I suppose it does, and I thank you for telling me so. Of course, I don't mean it literally." The Baroness stood looking at him. "How do you mean it?" she asked. This question was difficult to answer, and Acton, feeling the least bit foolish, walked to the open window and looked out. He stood there, thinking a moment, and then he turned back. "You know that document that you were to send to Germany," he said. "You called it your 'renunciation.' Did you ever send it?" Madame M nster's eyes expanded; she looked very grave. "What a singular answer to my question!" "Oh, it isn't an answer," said Acton. "I have wished to ask you, many times. I thought it probable you would tell me yourself. The question, on my part, seems abrupt now; but it would be abrupt at any time." The Baroness was silent a moment; and then, "I think I have told you too much!" she said. This declaration appeared to Acton to have a certain force; he had indeed a sense of asking more of her than he offered her. He returned to the window, and watched, for a moment, a little star that twinkled through the lattice of the piazza. There were at any rate offers enough he could make; perhaps he had hitherto not been sufficiently explicit in doing so. "I wish you would ask something of me," he presently said. "Is there nothing I can do for you? If you can't stand this dull life any more, let me amuse you!" The Baroness had sunk once more into a chair, and she had taken up a fan which she held, with both hands, to her mouth. Over the top of the fan her eyes were fixed on him. "You are very strange tonight," she said, with a little laugh. "I will do anything in the world," he rejoined, standing in front of her. "Shouldn't you like to travel about and see something of the country? Won't you go to Niagara? You ought to see Niagara, you know." "With you, do you mean?" "I should be delighted to take you." "You alone?" Acton looked at her, smiling, and yet with a serious air. "Well, yes; we might go alone," he said. "If you were not what you are," she answered, "I should feel insulted." "How do you mean--what I am?" "If you were one of the gentlemen I have been used to all my life. If you were not a queer Bostonian." "If the gentlemen you have been used to have taught you to expect insults," said Acton, "I am glad I am what I am. You had much better come to Niagara." "If you wish to 'amuse' me," the Baroness declared, "you need go to no further expense. You amuse me very effectually." He sat down opposite to her; she still held her fan up to her face, with her eyes only showing above it. There was a moment's silence, and then he said, returning to his former question, "Have you sent that document to Germany?" Again there was a moment's silence. The expressive eyes of Madame M nster seemed, however, half to break it. "I will tell you--at Niagara!" she said. She had hardly spoken when the door at the further end of the room opened--the door upon which, some minutes previous, Eugenia had fixed her gaze. Clifford Wentworth stood there, blushing and looking rather awkward. The Baroness rose, quickly, and Acton, more slowly, did the same. Clifford gave him no greeting; he was looking at Eugenia. "Ah, you were here?" exclaimed Acton. "He was in Felix's studio," said Madame M nster. "He wanted to see his sketches." Clifford looked at Robert Acton, but said nothing; he only fanned himself with his hat. "You chose a bad moment," said Acton; "you hadn't much light." "I hadn't any!" said Clifford, laughing. "Your candle went out?" Eugenia asked. "You should have come back here and lighted it again." Clifford looked at her a moment. "So I have--come back. But I have left the candle!" Eugenia turned away. "You are very stupid, my poor boy. You had better go home." "Well," said Clifford, "good-night!" "Haven't you a word to throw to a man when he has safely returned from a dangerous journey?" Acton asked. "How do you do?" said Clifford. "I thought--I thought you were----" and he paused, looking at the Baroness again. "You thought I was at Newport, eh? So I was--this morning." "Good-night, clever child!" said Madame M nster, over her shoulder. Clifford stared at her--not at all like a clever child; and then, with one of his little facetious growls, took his departure. "What is the matter with him?" asked Acton, when he was gone. "He seemed rather in a muddle." Eugenia, who was near the window, glanced out, listening a moment. "The matter--the matter"--she answered. "But you don't say such things here." "If you mean that he had been drinking a little, you can say that." "He doesn't drink any more. I have cured him. And in return--he's in love with me." It was Acton's turn to stare. He instantly thought of his sister; but he said nothing about her. He began to laugh. "I don't wonder at his passion! But I wonder at his forsaking your society for that of your brother's paint-brushes." Eugenia was silent a little. "He had not been in the studio. I invented that at the moment." "Invented it? For what purpose?" "He has an idea of being romantic. He has adopted the habit of coming to see me at midnight--passing only through the orchard and through Felix's painting-room, which has a door opening that way. It seems to amuse him," added Eugenia, with a little laugh. Acton felt more surprise than he confessed to, for this was a new view of Clifford, whose irregularities had hitherto been quite without the romantic element. He tried to laugh again, but he felt rather too serious, and after a moment's hesitation his seriousness explained itself. "I hope you don't encourage him," he said. "He must not be inconstant to poor Lizzie." "To your sister?" "You know they are decidedly intimate," said Acton. "Ah," cried Eugenia, smiling, "has she--has she----" "I don't know," Acton interrupted, "what she has. But I always supposed that Clifford had a desire to make himself agreeable to her." "Ah, _par exemple!_" the Baroness went on. "The little monster! The next time he becomes sentimental I will him tell that he ought to be ashamed of himself." Acton was silent a moment. "You had better say nothing about it." "I had told him as much already, on general grounds," said the Baroness. "But in this country, you know, the relations of young people are so extraordinary that one is quite at sea. They are not engaged when you would quite say they ought to be. Take Charlotte Wentworth, for instance, and that young ecclesiastic. If I were her father I should insist upon his marrying her; but it appears to be thought there is no urgency. On the other hand, you suddenly learn that a boy of twenty and a little girl who is still with her governess--your sister has no governess? Well, then, who is never away from her mamma--a young couple, in short, between whom you have noticed nothing beyond an exchange of the childish pleasantries characteristic of their age, are on the point of setting up as man and wife." The Baroness spoke with a certain exaggerated volubility which was in contrast with the languid grace that had characterized her manner before Clifford made his appearance. It seemed to Acton that there was a spark of irritation in her eye--a note of irony (as when she spoke of Lizzie being never away from her mother) in her voice. If Madame M nster was irritated, Robert Acton was vaguely mystified; she began to move about the room again, and he looked at her without saying anything. Presently she took out her watch, and, glancing at it, declared that it was three o'clock in the morning and that he must go. "I have not been here an hour," he said, "and they are still sitting up at the other house. You can see the lights. Your brother has not come in." "Oh, at the other house," cried Eugenia, "they are terrible people! I don't know what they may do over there. I am a quiet little humdrum woman; I have rigid rules and I keep them. One of them is not to have visitors in the small hours--especially clever men like you. So good-night!" Decidedly, the Baroness was incisive; and though Acton bade her good-night and departed, he was still a good deal mystified. The next day Clifford Wentworth came to see Lizzie, and Acton, who was at home and saw him pass through the garden, took note of the circumstance. He had a natural desire to make it tally with Madame M nster's account of Clifford's disaffection; but his ingenuity, finding itself unequal to the task, resolved at last to ask help of the young man's candor. He waited till he saw him going away, and then he went out and overtook him in the grounds. "I wish very much you would answer me a question," Acton said. "What were you doing, last night, at Madame M nster's?" Clifford began to laugh and to blush, by no means like a young man with a romantic secret. "What did she tell you?" he asked. "That is exactly what I don't want to say." "Well, I want to tell you the same," said Clifford; "and unless I know it perhaps I can't." They had stopped in a garden path; Acton looked hard at his rosy young kinsman. "She said she couldn't fancy what had got into you; you appeared to have taken a violent dislike to her." Clifford stared, looking a little alarmed. "Oh, come," he growled, "you don't mean that!" "And that when--for common civility's sake--you came occasionally to the house you left her alone and spent your time in Felix's studio, under pretext of looking at his sketches." "Oh, come!" growled Clifford, again. "Did you ever know me to tell an untruth?" "Yes, lots of them!" said Clifford, seeing an opening, out of the discussion, for his sarcastic powers. "Well," he presently added, "I thought you were my father." "You knew someone was there?" "We heard you coming in." Acton meditated. "You had been with the Baroness, then?" "I was in the parlor. We heard your step outside. I thought it was my father." "And on that," asked Acton, "you ran away?" "She told me to go--to go out by the studio." Acton meditated more intensely; if there had been a chair at hand he would have sat down. "Why should she wish you not to meet your father?" "Well," said Clifford, "father doesn't like to see me there." Acton looked askance at his companion and forbore to make any comment upon this assertion. "Has he said so," he asked, "to the Baroness?" "Well, I hope not," said Clifford. "He hasn't said so--in so many words--to me. But I know it worries him; and I want to stop worrying him. The Baroness knows it, and she wants me to stop, too." "To stop coming to see her?" "I don't know about that; but to stop worrying father. Eugenia knows everything," Clifford added, with an air of knowingness of his own. "Ah," said Acton, interrogatively, "Eugenia knows everything?" "She knew it was not father coming in." "Then why did you go?" Clifford blushed and laughed afresh. "Well, I was afraid it was. And besides, she told me to go, at any rate." "Did she think it was I?" Acton asked. "She didn't say so." Again Robert Acton reflected. "But you didn't go," he presently said; "you came back." "I couldn't get out of the studio," Clifford rejoined. "The door was locked, and Felix has nailed some planks across the lower half of the confounded windows to make the light come in from above. So they were no use. I waited there a good while, and then, suddenly, I felt ashamed. I didn't want to be hiding away from my own father. I couldn't stand it any longer. I bolted out, and when I found it was you I was a little flurried. But Eugenia carried it off, didn't she?" Clifford added, in the tone of a young humorist whose perception had not been permanently clouded by the sense of his own discomfort. "Beautifully!" said Acton. "Especially," he continued, "when one remembers that you were very imprudent and that she must have been a good deal annoyed." "Oh," cried Clifford, with the indifference of a young man who feels that however he may have failed of felicity in behavior he is extremely just in his impressions, "Eugenia doesn't care for anything!" Acton hesitated a moment. "Thank you for telling me this," he said at last. And then, laying his hand on Clifford's shoulder, he added, "Tell me one thing more: are you by chance a little in love with the Baroness?" "No, sir!" said Clifford, almost shaking off his hand. CHAPTER X The first sunday that followed Robert Acton's return from Newport witnessed a change in the brilliant weather that had long prevailed. The rain began to fall and the day was cold and dreary. Mr. Wentworth and his daughters put on overshoes and went to church, and Felix Young, without overshoes, went also, holding an umbrella over Gertrude. It is to be feared that, in the whole observance, this was the privilege he most highly valued. The Baroness remained at home; she was in neither a cheerful nor a devotional mood. She had, however, never been, during her residence in the United States, what is called a regular attendant at divine service; and on this particular Sunday morning of which I began with speaking she stood at the window of her little drawing-room, watching the long arm of a rose tree that was attached to her piazza, but a portion of which had disengaged itself, sway to and fro, shake and gesticulate, against the dusky drizzle of the sky. Every now and then, in a gust of wind, the rose tree scattered a shower of water-drops against the window-pane; it appeared to have a kind of human movement--a menacing, warning intention. The room was very cold; Madame M nster put on a shawl and walked about. Then she determined to have some fire; and summoning her ancient negress, the contrast of whose polished ebony and whose crimson turban had been at first a source of satisfaction to her, she made arrangements for the production of a crackling flame. This old woman's name was Azarina. The Baroness had begun by thinking that there would be a savory wildness in her talk, and, for amusement, she had encouraged her to chatter. But Azarina was dry and prim; her conversation was anything but African; she reminded Eugenia of the tiresome old ladies she met in society. She knew, however, how to make a fire; so that after she had laid the logs, Eugenia, who was terribly bored, found a quarter of an hour's entertainment in sitting and watching them blaze and sputter. She had thought it very likely Robert Acton would come and see her; she had not met him since that infelicitous evening. But the morning waned without his coming; several times she thought she heard his step on the piazza; but it was only a window-shutter shaking in a rain-gust. The Baroness, since the beginning of that episode in her career of which a slight sketch has been attempted in these pages, had had many moments of irritation. But today her irritation had a peculiar keenness; it appeared to feed upon itself. It urged her to do something; but it suggested no particularly profitable line of action. If she could have done something at the moment, on the spot, she would have stepped upon a European steamer and turned her back, with a kind of rapture, upon that profoundly mortifying failure, her visit to her American relations. It is not exactly apparent why she should have termed this enterprise a failure, inasmuch as she had been treated with the highest distinction for which allowance had been made in American institutions. Her irritation came, at bottom, from the sense, which, always present, had suddenly grown acute, that the social soil on this big, vague continent was somehow not adapted for growing those plants whose fragrance she especially inclined to inhale and by which she liked to see herself surrounded--a species of vegetation for which she carried a collection of seedlings, as we may say, in her pocket. She found her chief happiness in the sense of exerting a certain power and making a certain impression; and now she felt the annoyance of a rather wearied swimmer who, on nearing shore, to land, finds a smooth straight wall of rock when he had counted upon a clean firm beach. Her power, in the American air, seemed to have lost its prehensile attributes; the smooth wall of rock was insurmountable. _"Surely je n'en suis pas l ,"_ she said to herself, "that I let it make me uncomfortable that a Mr. Robert Acton shouldn't honor me with a visit!" Yet she was vexed that he had not come; and she was vexed at her vexation. Her brother, at least, came in, stamping in the hall and shaking the wet from his coat. In a moment he entered the room, with a glow in his cheek and half-a-dozen rain-drops glistening on his moustache. "Ah, you have a fire," he said. _"Les beaux jours sont pass s,"_ replied the Baroness. "Never, never! They have only begun," Felix declared, planting himself before the hearth. He turned his back to the fire, placed his hands behind him, extended his legs and looked away through the window with an expression of face which seemed to denote the perception of rose-color even in the tints of a wet Sunday. His sister, from her chair, looked up at him, watching him; and what she saw in his face was not grateful to her present mood. She was puzzled by many things, but her brother's disposition was a frequent source of wonder to her. I say frequent and not constant, for there were long periods during which she gave her attention to other problems. Sometimes she had said to herself that his happy temper, his eternal gaiety, was an affectation, a _pose_; but she was vaguely conscious that during the present summer he had been a highly successful comedian. They had never yet had an explanation; she had not known the need of one. Felix was presumably following the bent of his disinterested genius, and she felt that she had no advice to give him that he would understand. With this, there was always a certain element of comfort about Felix--the assurance that he would not interfere. He was very delicate, this pure-minded Felix; in effect, he was her brother, and Madame M nster felt that there was a great propriety, every way, in that. It is true that Felix was delicate; he was not fond of explanations with his sister; this was one of the very few things in the world about which he was uncomfortable. But now he was not thinking of anything uncomfortable. "Dear brother," said Eugenia at last, "do stop making _les yeux doux_ at the rain." "With pleasure. I will make them at you!" answered Felix. "How much longer," asked Eugenia, in a moment, "do you propose to remain in this lovely spot?" Felix stared. "Do you want to go away--already?" "'Already' is delicious. I am not so happy as you." Felix dropped into a chair, looking at the fire. "The fact is I _am_ happy," he said in his light, clear tone. "And do you propose to spend your life in making love to Gertrude Wentworth?" "Yes!" said Felix, smiling sidewise at his sister. The Baroness returned his glance, much more gravely; and then, "Do you like her?" she asked. "Don't you?" Felix demanded. The Baroness was silent a moment. "I will answer you in the words of the gentleman who was asked if he liked music: _'Je ne la crains pas!'_" "She admires you immensely," said Felix. "I don't care for that. Other women should not admire one." "They should dislike you?" Again Madame M nster hesitated. "They should hate me! It's a measure of the time I have been losing here that they don't." "No time is lost in which one has been happy!" said Felix, with a bright sententiousness which may well have been a little irritating. "And in which," rejoined his sister, with a harsher laugh, "one has secured the affections of a young lady with a fortune!" Felix explained, very candidly and seriously. "I have secured Gertrude's affection, but I am by no means sure that I have secured her fortune. That may come--or it may not." "Ah, well, it _may!_ That's the great point." "It depends upon her father. He doesn't smile upon our union. You know he wants her to marry Mr. Brand." "I know nothing about it!" cried the Baroness. "Please to put on a log." Felix complied with her request and sat watching the quickening of the flame. Presently his sister added, "And you propose to elope with mademoiselle?" "By no means. I don't wish to do anything that's disagreeable to Mr. Wentworth. He has been far too kind to us." "But you must choose between pleasing yourself and pleasing him." "I want to please everyone!" exclaimed Felix, joyously. "I have a good conscience. I made up my mind at the outset that it was not my place to make love to Gertrude." "So, to simplify matters, she made love to you!" Felix looked at his sister with sudden gravity. "You say you are not afraid of her," he said. "But perhaps you ought to be--a little. She's a very clever person." "I begin to see it!" cried the Baroness. Her brother, making no rejoinder, leaned back in his chair, and there was a long silence. At last, with an altered accent, Madame M nster put another question. "You expect, at any rate, to marry?" "I shall be greatly disappointed if we don't." "A disappointment or two will do you good!" the Baroness declared. "And, afterwards, do you mean to turn American?" "It seems to me I am a very good American already. But we shall go to Europe. Gertrude wants extremely to see the world." "Ah, like me, when I came here!" said the Baroness, with a little laugh. "No, not like you," Felix rejoined, looking at his sister with a certain gentle seriousness. While he looked at her she rose from her chair, and he also got up. "Gertrude is not at all like you," he went on; "but in her own way she is almost as clever." He paused a moment; his soul was full of an agreeable feeling and of a lively disposition to express it. His sister, to his spiritual vision, was always like the lunar disk when only a part of it is lighted. The shadow on this bright surface seemed to him to expand and to contract; but whatever its proportions, he always appreciated the moonlight. He looked at the Baroness, and then he kissed her. "I am very much in | myself | How many times the word 'myself' appears in the text? | 3 |
us," said Acton. "That's what we must keep hold of!" He was too impatient to see Madame M nster again to wonder what Mr. Wentworth was talking about. Nevertheless, after he had passed out of the house and traversed the garden and the little piece of road that separated him from Eugenia's provisional residence, he stopped a moment outside. He stood in her little garden; the long window of her parlor was open, and he could see the white curtains, with the lamp-light shining through them, swaying softly to and fro in the warm night wind. There was a sort of excitement in the idea of seeing Madame M nster again; he became aware that his heart was beating rather faster than usual. It was this that made him stop, with a half-amused surprise. But in a moment he went along the piazza, and, approaching the open window, tapped upon its lintel with his stick. He could see the Baroness within; she was standing in the middle of the room. She came to the window and pulled aside the curtain; then she stood looking at him a moment. She was not smiling; she seemed serious. _"Mais entrez donc!"_ she said at last. Acton passed in across the window-sill; he wondered, for an instant, what was the matter with her. But the next moment she had begun to smile and had put out her hand. "Better late than never," she said. "It is very kind of you to come at this hour." "I have just returned from my journey," said Acton. "Ah, very kind, very kind," she repeated, looking about her where to sit. "I went first to the other house," Acton continued. "I expected to find you there." She had sunk into her usual chair; but she got up again, and began to move about the room. Acton had laid down his hat and stick; he was looking at her, conscious that there was in fact a great charm in seeing her again. "I don't know whether I ought to tell you to sit down," she said. "It is too late to begin a visit." "It's too early to end one," Acton declared; "and we needn't mind the beginning." She looked at him again, and, after a moment, dropped once more into her low chair, while he took a place near her. "We are in the middle, then?" she asked. "Was that where we were when you went away? No, I haven't been to the other house." "Not yesterday, nor the day before, eh?" "I don't know how many days it is." "You are tired of it," said Acton. She leaned back in her chair; her arms were folded. "That is a terrible accusation, but I have not the courage to defend myself." "I am not attacking you," said Acton. "I expected something of this kind." "It's a proof of extreme intelligence. I hope you enjoyed your journey." "Not at all," Acton declared. "I would much rather have been here with you." "Now you _are_ attacking me," said the Baroness. "You are contrasting my inconstancy with your own fidelity." "I confess I never get tired of people I like." "Ah, you are not a poor wicked foreign woman, with irritable nerves and a sophisticated mind!" "Something has happened to you since I went away," said Acton, changing his place. "Your going away--that is what has happened to me." "Do you mean to say that you have missed me?" he asked. "If I had meant to say it, it would not be worth your making a note of. I am very dishonest and my compliments are worthless." Acton was silent for some moments. "You have broken down," he said at last. Madame M nster left her chair, and began to move about. "Only for a moment. I shall pull myself together again." "You had better not take it too hard. If you are bored, you needn't be afraid to say so--to me at least." "You shouldn't say such things as that," the Baroness answered. "You should encourage me." "I admire your patience; that is encouraging." "You shouldn't even say that. When you talk of my patience you are disloyal to your own people. Patience implies suffering; and what have I had to suffer?" "Oh, not hunger, not unkindness, certainly," said Acton, laughing. "Nevertheless, we all admire your patience." "You all detest me!" cried the Baroness, with a sudden vehemence, turning her back toward him. "You make it hard," said Acton, getting up, "for a man to say something tender to you." This evening there was something particularly striking and touching about her; an unwonted softness and a look of suppressed emotion. He felt himself suddenly appreciating the fact that she had behaved very well. She had come to this quiet corner of the world under the weight of a cruel indignity, and she had been so gracefully, modestly thankful for the rest she found there. She had joined that simple circle over the way; she had mingled in its plain, provincial talk; she had shared its meagre and savorless pleasures. She had set herself a task, and she had rigidly performed it. She had conformed to the angular conditions of New England life, and she had had the tact and pluck to carry it off as if she liked them. Acton felt a more downright need than he had ever felt before to tell her that he admired her and that she struck him as a very superior woman. All along, hitherto, he had been on his guard with her; he had been cautious, observant, suspicious. But now a certain light tumult in his blood seemed to tell him that a finer degree of confidence in this charming woman would be its own reward. "We don't detest you," he went on. "I don't know what you mean. At any rate, I speak for myself; I don't know anything about the others. Very likely, you detest them for the dull life they make you lead. Really, it would give me a sort of pleasure to hear you say so." Eugenia had been looking at the door on the other side of the room; now she slowly turned her eyes toward Robert Acton. "What can be the motive," she asked, "of a man like you--an honest man, a _galant homme_--in saying so base a thing as that?" "Does it sound very base?" asked Acton, candidly. "I suppose it does, and I thank you for telling me so. Of course, I don't mean it literally." The Baroness stood looking at him. "How do you mean it?" she asked. This question was difficult to answer, and Acton, feeling the least bit foolish, walked to the open window and looked out. He stood there, thinking a moment, and then he turned back. "You know that document that you were to send to Germany," he said. "You called it your 'renunciation.' Did you ever send it?" Madame M nster's eyes expanded; she looked very grave. "What a singular answer to my question!" "Oh, it isn't an answer," said Acton. "I have wished to ask you, many times. I thought it probable you would tell me yourself. The question, on my part, seems abrupt now; but it would be abrupt at any time." The Baroness was silent a moment; and then, "I think I have told you too much!" she said. This declaration appeared to Acton to have a certain force; he had indeed a sense of asking more of her than he offered her. He returned to the window, and watched, for a moment, a little star that twinkled through the lattice of the piazza. There were at any rate offers enough he could make; perhaps he had hitherto not been sufficiently explicit in doing so. "I wish you would ask something of me," he presently said. "Is there nothing I can do for you? If you can't stand this dull life any more, let me amuse you!" The Baroness had sunk once more into a chair, and she had taken up a fan which she held, with both hands, to her mouth. Over the top of the fan her eyes were fixed on him. "You are very strange tonight," she said, with a little laugh. "I will do anything in the world," he rejoined, standing in front of her. "Shouldn't you like to travel about and see something of the country? Won't you go to Niagara? You ought to see Niagara, you know." "With you, do you mean?" "I should be delighted to take you." "You alone?" Acton looked at her, smiling, and yet with a serious air. "Well, yes; we might go alone," he said. "If you were not what you are," she answered, "I should feel insulted." "How do you mean--what I am?" "If you were one of the gentlemen I have been used to all my life. If you were not a queer Bostonian." "If the gentlemen you have been used to have taught you to expect insults," said Acton, "I am glad I am what I am. You had much better come to Niagara." "If you wish to 'amuse' me," the Baroness declared, "you need go to no further expense. You amuse me very effectually." He sat down opposite to her; she still held her fan up to her face, with her eyes only showing above it. There was a moment's silence, and then he said, returning to his former question, "Have you sent that document to Germany?" Again there was a moment's silence. The expressive eyes of Madame M nster seemed, however, half to break it. "I will tell you--at Niagara!" she said. She had hardly spoken when the door at the further end of the room opened--the door upon which, some minutes previous, Eugenia had fixed her gaze. Clifford Wentworth stood there, blushing and looking rather awkward. The Baroness rose, quickly, and Acton, more slowly, did the same. Clifford gave him no greeting; he was looking at Eugenia. "Ah, you were here?" exclaimed Acton. "He was in Felix's studio," said Madame M nster. "He wanted to see his sketches." Clifford looked at Robert Acton, but said nothing; he only fanned himself with his hat. "You chose a bad moment," said Acton; "you hadn't much light." "I hadn't any!" said Clifford, laughing. "Your candle went out?" Eugenia asked. "You should have come back here and lighted it again." Clifford looked at her a moment. "So I have--come back. But I have left the candle!" Eugenia turned away. "You are very stupid, my poor boy. You had better go home." "Well," said Clifford, "good-night!" "Haven't you a word to throw to a man when he has safely returned from a dangerous journey?" Acton asked. "How do you do?" said Clifford. "I thought--I thought you were----" and he paused, looking at the Baroness again. "You thought I was at Newport, eh? So I was--this morning." "Good-night, clever child!" said Madame M nster, over her shoulder. Clifford stared at her--not at all like a clever child; and then, with one of his little facetious growls, took his departure. "What is the matter with him?" asked Acton, when he was gone. "He seemed rather in a muddle." Eugenia, who was near the window, glanced out, listening a moment. "The matter--the matter"--she answered. "But you don't say such things here." "If you mean that he had been drinking a little, you can say that." "He doesn't drink any more. I have cured him. And in return--he's in love with me." It was Acton's turn to stare. He instantly thought of his sister; but he said nothing about her. He began to laugh. "I don't wonder at his passion! But I wonder at his forsaking your society for that of your brother's paint-brushes." Eugenia was silent a little. "He had not been in the studio. I invented that at the moment." "Invented it? For what purpose?" "He has an idea of being romantic. He has adopted the habit of coming to see me at midnight--passing only through the orchard and through Felix's painting-room, which has a door opening that way. It seems to amuse him," added Eugenia, with a little laugh. Acton felt more surprise than he confessed to, for this was a new view of Clifford, whose irregularities had hitherto been quite without the romantic element. He tried to laugh again, but he felt rather too serious, and after a moment's hesitation his seriousness explained itself. "I hope you don't encourage him," he said. "He must not be inconstant to poor Lizzie." "To your sister?" "You know they are decidedly intimate," said Acton. "Ah," cried Eugenia, smiling, "has she--has she----" "I don't know," Acton interrupted, "what she has. But I always supposed that Clifford had a desire to make himself agreeable to her." "Ah, _par exemple!_" the Baroness went on. "The little monster! The next time he becomes sentimental I will him tell that he ought to be ashamed of himself." Acton was silent a moment. "You had better say nothing about it." "I had told him as much already, on general grounds," said the Baroness. "But in this country, you know, the relations of young people are so extraordinary that one is quite at sea. They are not engaged when you would quite say they ought to be. Take Charlotte Wentworth, for instance, and that young ecclesiastic. If I were her father I should insist upon his marrying her; but it appears to be thought there is no urgency. On the other hand, you suddenly learn that a boy of twenty and a little girl who is still with her governess--your sister has no governess? Well, then, who is never away from her mamma--a young couple, in short, between whom you have noticed nothing beyond an exchange of the childish pleasantries characteristic of their age, are on the point of setting up as man and wife." The Baroness spoke with a certain exaggerated volubility which was in contrast with the languid grace that had characterized her manner before Clifford made his appearance. It seemed to Acton that there was a spark of irritation in her eye--a note of irony (as when she spoke of Lizzie being never away from her mother) in her voice. If Madame M nster was irritated, Robert Acton was vaguely mystified; she began to move about the room again, and he looked at her without saying anything. Presently she took out her watch, and, glancing at it, declared that it was three o'clock in the morning and that he must go. "I have not been here an hour," he said, "and they are still sitting up at the other house. You can see the lights. Your brother has not come in." "Oh, at the other house," cried Eugenia, "they are terrible people! I don't know what they may do over there. I am a quiet little humdrum woman; I have rigid rules and I keep them. One of them is not to have visitors in the small hours--especially clever men like you. So good-night!" Decidedly, the Baroness was incisive; and though Acton bade her good-night and departed, he was still a good deal mystified. The next day Clifford Wentworth came to see Lizzie, and Acton, who was at home and saw him pass through the garden, took note of the circumstance. He had a natural desire to make it tally with Madame M nster's account of Clifford's disaffection; but his ingenuity, finding itself unequal to the task, resolved at last to ask help of the young man's candor. He waited till he saw him going away, and then he went out and overtook him in the grounds. "I wish very much you would answer me a question," Acton said. "What were you doing, last night, at Madame M nster's?" Clifford began to laugh and to blush, by no means like a young man with a romantic secret. "What did she tell you?" he asked. "That is exactly what I don't want to say." "Well, I want to tell you the same," said Clifford; "and unless I know it perhaps I can't." They had stopped in a garden path; Acton looked hard at his rosy young kinsman. "She said she couldn't fancy what had got into you; you appeared to have taken a violent dislike to her." Clifford stared, looking a little alarmed. "Oh, come," he growled, "you don't mean that!" "And that when--for common civility's sake--you came occasionally to the house you left her alone and spent your time in Felix's studio, under pretext of looking at his sketches." "Oh, come!" growled Clifford, again. "Did you ever know me to tell an untruth?" "Yes, lots of them!" said Clifford, seeing an opening, out of the discussion, for his sarcastic powers. "Well," he presently added, "I thought you were my father." "You knew someone was there?" "We heard you coming in." Acton meditated. "You had been with the Baroness, then?" "I was in the parlor. We heard your step outside. I thought it was my father." "And on that," asked Acton, "you ran away?" "She told me to go--to go out by the studio." Acton meditated more intensely; if there had been a chair at hand he would have sat down. "Why should she wish you not to meet your father?" "Well," said Clifford, "father doesn't like to see me there." Acton looked askance at his companion and forbore to make any comment upon this assertion. "Has he said so," he asked, "to the Baroness?" "Well, I hope not," said Clifford. "He hasn't said so--in so many words--to me. But I know it worries him; and I want to stop worrying him. The Baroness knows it, and she wants me to stop, too." "To stop coming to see her?" "I don't know about that; but to stop worrying father. Eugenia knows everything," Clifford added, with an air of knowingness of his own. "Ah," said Acton, interrogatively, "Eugenia knows everything?" "She knew it was not father coming in." "Then why did you go?" Clifford blushed and laughed afresh. "Well, I was afraid it was. And besides, she told me to go, at any rate." "Did she think it was I?" Acton asked. "She didn't say so." Again Robert Acton reflected. "But you didn't go," he presently said; "you came back." "I couldn't get out of the studio," Clifford rejoined. "The door was locked, and Felix has nailed some planks across the lower half of the confounded windows to make the light come in from above. So they were no use. I waited there a good while, and then, suddenly, I felt ashamed. I didn't want to be hiding away from my own father. I couldn't stand it any longer. I bolted out, and when I found it was you I was a little flurried. But Eugenia carried it off, didn't she?" Clifford added, in the tone of a young humorist whose perception had not been permanently clouded by the sense of his own discomfort. "Beautifully!" said Acton. "Especially," he continued, "when one remembers that you were very imprudent and that she must have been a good deal annoyed." "Oh," cried Clifford, with the indifference of a young man who feels that however he may have failed of felicity in behavior he is extremely just in his impressions, "Eugenia doesn't care for anything!" Acton hesitated a moment. "Thank you for telling me this," he said at last. And then, laying his hand on Clifford's shoulder, he added, "Tell me one thing more: are you by chance a little in love with the Baroness?" "No, sir!" said Clifford, almost shaking off his hand. CHAPTER X The first sunday that followed Robert Acton's return from Newport witnessed a change in the brilliant weather that had long prevailed. The rain began to fall and the day was cold and dreary. Mr. Wentworth and his daughters put on overshoes and went to church, and Felix Young, without overshoes, went also, holding an umbrella over Gertrude. It is to be feared that, in the whole observance, this was the privilege he most highly valued. The Baroness remained at home; she was in neither a cheerful nor a devotional mood. She had, however, never been, during her residence in the United States, what is called a regular attendant at divine service; and on this particular Sunday morning of which I began with speaking she stood at the window of her little drawing-room, watching the long arm of a rose tree that was attached to her piazza, but a portion of which had disengaged itself, sway to and fro, shake and gesticulate, against the dusky drizzle of the sky. Every now and then, in a gust of wind, the rose tree scattered a shower of water-drops against the window-pane; it appeared to have a kind of human movement--a menacing, warning intention. The room was very cold; Madame M nster put on a shawl and walked about. Then she determined to have some fire; and summoning her ancient negress, the contrast of whose polished ebony and whose crimson turban had been at first a source of satisfaction to her, she made arrangements for the production of a crackling flame. This old woman's name was Azarina. The Baroness had begun by thinking that there would be a savory wildness in her talk, and, for amusement, she had encouraged her to chatter. But Azarina was dry and prim; her conversation was anything but African; she reminded Eugenia of the tiresome old ladies she met in society. She knew, however, how to make a fire; so that after she had laid the logs, Eugenia, who was terribly bored, found a quarter of an hour's entertainment in sitting and watching them blaze and sputter. She had thought it very likely Robert Acton would come and see her; she had not met him since that infelicitous evening. But the morning waned without his coming; several times she thought she heard his step on the piazza; but it was only a window-shutter shaking in a rain-gust. The Baroness, since the beginning of that episode in her career of which a slight sketch has been attempted in these pages, had had many moments of irritation. But today her irritation had a peculiar keenness; it appeared to feed upon itself. It urged her to do something; but it suggested no particularly profitable line of action. If she could have done something at the moment, on the spot, she would have stepped upon a European steamer and turned her back, with a kind of rapture, upon that profoundly mortifying failure, her visit to her American relations. It is not exactly apparent why she should have termed this enterprise a failure, inasmuch as she had been treated with the highest distinction for which allowance had been made in American institutions. Her irritation came, at bottom, from the sense, which, always present, had suddenly grown acute, that the social soil on this big, vague continent was somehow not adapted for growing those plants whose fragrance she especially inclined to inhale and by which she liked to see herself surrounded--a species of vegetation for which she carried a collection of seedlings, as we may say, in her pocket. She found her chief happiness in the sense of exerting a certain power and making a certain impression; and now she felt the annoyance of a rather wearied swimmer who, on nearing shore, to land, finds a smooth straight wall of rock when he had counted upon a clean firm beach. Her power, in the American air, seemed to have lost its prehensile attributes; the smooth wall of rock was insurmountable. _"Surely je n'en suis pas l ,"_ she said to herself, "that I let it make me uncomfortable that a Mr. Robert Acton shouldn't honor me with a visit!" Yet she was vexed that he had not come; and she was vexed at her vexation. Her brother, at least, came in, stamping in the hall and shaking the wet from his coat. In a moment he entered the room, with a glow in his cheek and half-a-dozen rain-drops glistening on his moustache. "Ah, you have a fire," he said. _"Les beaux jours sont pass s,"_ replied the Baroness. "Never, never! They have only begun," Felix declared, planting himself before the hearth. He turned his back to the fire, placed his hands behind him, extended his legs and looked away through the window with an expression of face which seemed to denote the perception of rose-color even in the tints of a wet Sunday. His sister, from her chair, looked up at him, watching him; and what she saw in his face was not grateful to her present mood. She was puzzled by many things, but her brother's disposition was a frequent source of wonder to her. I say frequent and not constant, for there were long periods during which she gave her attention to other problems. Sometimes she had said to herself that his happy temper, his eternal gaiety, was an affectation, a _pose_; but she was vaguely conscious that during the present summer he had been a highly successful comedian. They had never yet had an explanation; she had not known the need of one. Felix was presumably following the bent of his disinterested genius, and she felt that she had no advice to give him that he would understand. With this, there was always a certain element of comfort about Felix--the assurance that he would not interfere. He was very delicate, this pure-minded Felix; in effect, he was her brother, and Madame M nster felt that there was a great propriety, every way, in that. It is true that Felix was delicate; he was not fond of explanations with his sister; this was one of the very few things in the world about which he was uncomfortable. But now he was not thinking of anything uncomfortable. "Dear brother," said Eugenia at last, "do stop making _les yeux doux_ at the rain." "With pleasure. I will make them at you!" answered Felix. "How much longer," asked Eugenia, in a moment, "do you propose to remain in this lovely spot?" Felix stared. "Do you want to go away--already?" "'Already' is delicious. I am not so happy as you." Felix dropped into a chair, looking at the fire. "The fact is I _am_ happy," he said in his light, clear tone. "And do you propose to spend your life in making love to Gertrude Wentworth?" "Yes!" said Felix, smiling sidewise at his sister. The Baroness returned his glance, much more gravely; and then, "Do you like her?" she asked. "Don't you?" Felix demanded. The Baroness was silent a moment. "I will answer you in the words of the gentleman who was asked if he liked music: _'Je ne la crains pas!'_" "She admires you immensely," said Felix. "I don't care for that. Other women should not admire one." "They should dislike you?" Again Madame M nster hesitated. "They should hate me! It's a measure of the time I have been losing here that they don't." "No time is lost in which one has been happy!" said Felix, with a bright sententiousness which may well have been a little irritating. "And in which," rejoined his sister, with a harsher laugh, "one has secured the affections of a young lady with a fortune!" Felix explained, very candidly and seriously. "I have secured Gertrude's affection, but I am by no means sure that I have secured her fortune. That may come--or it may not." "Ah, well, it _may!_ That's the great point." "It depends upon her father. He doesn't smile upon our union. You know he wants her to marry Mr. Brand." "I know nothing about it!" cried the Baroness. "Please to put on a log." Felix complied with her request and sat watching the quickening of the flame. Presently his sister added, "And you propose to elope with mademoiselle?" "By no means. I don't wish to do anything that's disagreeable to Mr. Wentworth. He has been far too kind to us." "But you must choose between pleasing yourself and pleasing him." "I want to please everyone!" exclaimed Felix, joyously. "I have a good conscience. I made up my mind at the outset that it was not my place to make love to Gertrude." "So, to simplify matters, she made love to you!" Felix looked at his sister with sudden gravity. "You say you are not afraid of her," he said. "But perhaps you ought to be--a little. She's a very clever person." "I begin to see it!" cried the Baroness. Her brother, making no rejoinder, leaned back in his chair, and there was a long silence. At last, with an altered accent, Madame M nster put another question. "You expect, at any rate, to marry?" "I shall be greatly disappointed if we don't." "A disappointment or two will do you good!" the Baroness declared. "And, afterwards, do you mean to turn American?" "It seems to me I am a very good American already. But we shall go to Europe. Gertrude wants extremely to see the world." "Ah, like me, when I came here!" said the Baroness, with a little laugh. "No, not like you," Felix rejoined, looking at his sister with a certain gentle seriousness. While he looked at her she rose from her chair, and he also got up. "Gertrude is not at all like you," he went on; "but in her own way she is almost as clever." He paused a moment; his soul was full of an agreeable feeling and of a lively disposition to express it. His sister, to his spiritual vision, was always like the lunar disk when only a part of it is lighted. The shadow on this bright surface seemed to him to expand and to contract; but whatever its proportions, he always appreciated the moonlight. He looked at the Baroness, and then he kissed her. "I am very much in | such | How many times the word 'such' appears in the text? | 2 |
us," said Acton. "That's what we must keep hold of!" He was too impatient to see Madame M nster again to wonder what Mr. Wentworth was talking about. Nevertheless, after he had passed out of the house and traversed the garden and the little piece of road that separated him from Eugenia's provisional residence, he stopped a moment outside. He stood in her little garden; the long window of her parlor was open, and he could see the white curtains, with the lamp-light shining through them, swaying softly to and fro in the warm night wind. There was a sort of excitement in the idea of seeing Madame M nster again; he became aware that his heart was beating rather faster than usual. It was this that made him stop, with a half-amused surprise. But in a moment he went along the piazza, and, approaching the open window, tapped upon its lintel with his stick. He could see the Baroness within; she was standing in the middle of the room. She came to the window and pulled aside the curtain; then she stood looking at him a moment. She was not smiling; she seemed serious. _"Mais entrez donc!"_ she said at last. Acton passed in across the window-sill; he wondered, for an instant, what was the matter with her. But the next moment she had begun to smile and had put out her hand. "Better late than never," she said. "It is very kind of you to come at this hour." "I have just returned from my journey," said Acton. "Ah, very kind, very kind," she repeated, looking about her where to sit. "I went first to the other house," Acton continued. "I expected to find you there." She had sunk into her usual chair; but she got up again, and began to move about the room. Acton had laid down his hat and stick; he was looking at her, conscious that there was in fact a great charm in seeing her again. "I don't know whether I ought to tell you to sit down," she said. "It is too late to begin a visit." "It's too early to end one," Acton declared; "and we needn't mind the beginning." She looked at him again, and, after a moment, dropped once more into her low chair, while he took a place near her. "We are in the middle, then?" she asked. "Was that where we were when you went away? No, I haven't been to the other house." "Not yesterday, nor the day before, eh?" "I don't know how many days it is." "You are tired of it," said Acton. She leaned back in her chair; her arms were folded. "That is a terrible accusation, but I have not the courage to defend myself." "I am not attacking you," said Acton. "I expected something of this kind." "It's a proof of extreme intelligence. I hope you enjoyed your journey." "Not at all," Acton declared. "I would much rather have been here with you." "Now you _are_ attacking me," said the Baroness. "You are contrasting my inconstancy with your own fidelity." "I confess I never get tired of people I like." "Ah, you are not a poor wicked foreign woman, with irritable nerves and a sophisticated mind!" "Something has happened to you since I went away," said Acton, changing his place. "Your going away--that is what has happened to me." "Do you mean to say that you have missed me?" he asked. "If I had meant to say it, it would not be worth your making a note of. I am very dishonest and my compliments are worthless." Acton was silent for some moments. "You have broken down," he said at last. Madame M nster left her chair, and began to move about. "Only for a moment. I shall pull myself together again." "You had better not take it too hard. If you are bored, you needn't be afraid to say so--to me at least." "You shouldn't say such things as that," the Baroness answered. "You should encourage me." "I admire your patience; that is encouraging." "You shouldn't even say that. When you talk of my patience you are disloyal to your own people. Patience implies suffering; and what have I had to suffer?" "Oh, not hunger, not unkindness, certainly," said Acton, laughing. "Nevertheless, we all admire your patience." "You all detest me!" cried the Baroness, with a sudden vehemence, turning her back toward him. "You make it hard," said Acton, getting up, "for a man to say something tender to you." This evening there was something particularly striking and touching about her; an unwonted softness and a look of suppressed emotion. He felt himself suddenly appreciating the fact that she had behaved very well. She had come to this quiet corner of the world under the weight of a cruel indignity, and she had been so gracefully, modestly thankful for the rest she found there. She had joined that simple circle over the way; she had mingled in its plain, provincial talk; she had shared its meagre and savorless pleasures. She had set herself a task, and she had rigidly performed it. She had conformed to the angular conditions of New England life, and she had had the tact and pluck to carry it off as if she liked them. Acton felt a more downright need than he had ever felt before to tell her that he admired her and that she struck him as a very superior woman. All along, hitherto, he had been on his guard with her; he had been cautious, observant, suspicious. But now a certain light tumult in his blood seemed to tell him that a finer degree of confidence in this charming woman would be its own reward. "We don't detest you," he went on. "I don't know what you mean. At any rate, I speak for myself; I don't know anything about the others. Very likely, you detest them for the dull life they make you lead. Really, it would give me a sort of pleasure to hear you say so." Eugenia had been looking at the door on the other side of the room; now she slowly turned her eyes toward Robert Acton. "What can be the motive," she asked, "of a man like you--an honest man, a _galant homme_--in saying so base a thing as that?" "Does it sound very base?" asked Acton, candidly. "I suppose it does, and I thank you for telling me so. Of course, I don't mean it literally." The Baroness stood looking at him. "How do you mean it?" she asked. This question was difficult to answer, and Acton, feeling the least bit foolish, walked to the open window and looked out. He stood there, thinking a moment, and then he turned back. "You know that document that you were to send to Germany," he said. "You called it your 'renunciation.' Did you ever send it?" Madame M nster's eyes expanded; she looked very grave. "What a singular answer to my question!" "Oh, it isn't an answer," said Acton. "I have wished to ask you, many times. I thought it probable you would tell me yourself. The question, on my part, seems abrupt now; but it would be abrupt at any time." The Baroness was silent a moment; and then, "I think I have told you too much!" she said. This declaration appeared to Acton to have a certain force; he had indeed a sense of asking more of her than he offered her. He returned to the window, and watched, for a moment, a little star that twinkled through the lattice of the piazza. There were at any rate offers enough he could make; perhaps he had hitherto not been sufficiently explicit in doing so. "I wish you would ask something of me," he presently said. "Is there nothing I can do for you? If you can't stand this dull life any more, let me amuse you!" The Baroness had sunk once more into a chair, and she had taken up a fan which she held, with both hands, to her mouth. Over the top of the fan her eyes were fixed on him. "You are very strange tonight," she said, with a little laugh. "I will do anything in the world," he rejoined, standing in front of her. "Shouldn't you like to travel about and see something of the country? Won't you go to Niagara? You ought to see Niagara, you know." "With you, do you mean?" "I should be delighted to take you." "You alone?" Acton looked at her, smiling, and yet with a serious air. "Well, yes; we might go alone," he said. "If you were not what you are," she answered, "I should feel insulted." "How do you mean--what I am?" "If you were one of the gentlemen I have been used to all my life. If you were not a queer Bostonian." "If the gentlemen you have been used to have taught you to expect insults," said Acton, "I am glad I am what I am. You had much better come to Niagara." "If you wish to 'amuse' me," the Baroness declared, "you need go to no further expense. You amuse me very effectually." He sat down opposite to her; she still held her fan up to her face, with her eyes only showing above it. There was a moment's silence, and then he said, returning to his former question, "Have you sent that document to Germany?" Again there was a moment's silence. The expressive eyes of Madame M nster seemed, however, half to break it. "I will tell you--at Niagara!" she said. She had hardly spoken when the door at the further end of the room opened--the door upon which, some minutes previous, Eugenia had fixed her gaze. Clifford Wentworth stood there, blushing and looking rather awkward. The Baroness rose, quickly, and Acton, more slowly, did the same. Clifford gave him no greeting; he was looking at Eugenia. "Ah, you were here?" exclaimed Acton. "He was in Felix's studio," said Madame M nster. "He wanted to see his sketches." Clifford looked at Robert Acton, but said nothing; he only fanned himself with his hat. "You chose a bad moment," said Acton; "you hadn't much light." "I hadn't any!" said Clifford, laughing. "Your candle went out?" Eugenia asked. "You should have come back here and lighted it again." Clifford looked at her a moment. "So I have--come back. But I have left the candle!" Eugenia turned away. "You are very stupid, my poor boy. You had better go home." "Well," said Clifford, "good-night!" "Haven't you a word to throw to a man when he has safely returned from a dangerous journey?" Acton asked. "How do you do?" said Clifford. "I thought--I thought you were----" and he paused, looking at the Baroness again. "You thought I was at Newport, eh? So I was--this morning." "Good-night, clever child!" said Madame M nster, over her shoulder. Clifford stared at her--not at all like a clever child; and then, with one of his little facetious growls, took his departure. "What is the matter with him?" asked Acton, when he was gone. "He seemed rather in a muddle." Eugenia, who was near the window, glanced out, listening a moment. "The matter--the matter"--she answered. "But you don't say such things here." "If you mean that he had been drinking a little, you can say that." "He doesn't drink any more. I have cured him. And in return--he's in love with me." It was Acton's turn to stare. He instantly thought of his sister; but he said nothing about her. He began to laugh. "I don't wonder at his passion! But I wonder at his forsaking your society for that of your brother's paint-brushes." Eugenia was silent a little. "He had not been in the studio. I invented that at the moment." "Invented it? For what purpose?" "He has an idea of being romantic. He has adopted the habit of coming to see me at midnight--passing only through the orchard and through Felix's painting-room, which has a door opening that way. It seems to amuse him," added Eugenia, with a little laugh. Acton felt more surprise than he confessed to, for this was a new view of Clifford, whose irregularities had hitherto been quite without the romantic element. He tried to laugh again, but he felt rather too serious, and after a moment's hesitation his seriousness explained itself. "I hope you don't encourage him," he said. "He must not be inconstant to poor Lizzie." "To your sister?" "You know they are decidedly intimate," said Acton. "Ah," cried Eugenia, smiling, "has she--has she----" "I don't know," Acton interrupted, "what she has. But I always supposed that Clifford had a desire to make himself agreeable to her." "Ah, _par exemple!_" the Baroness went on. "The little monster! The next time he becomes sentimental I will him tell that he ought to be ashamed of himself." Acton was silent a moment. "You had better say nothing about it." "I had told him as much already, on general grounds," said the Baroness. "But in this country, you know, the relations of young people are so extraordinary that one is quite at sea. They are not engaged when you would quite say they ought to be. Take Charlotte Wentworth, for instance, and that young ecclesiastic. If I were her father I should insist upon his marrying her; but it appears to be thought there is no urgency. On the other hand, you suddenly learn that a boy of twenty and a little girl who is still with her governess--your sister has no governess? Well, then, who is never away from her mamma--a young couple, in short, between whom you have noticed nothing beyond an exchange of the childish pleasantries characteristic of their age, are on the point of setting up as man and wife." The Baroness spoke with a certain exaggerated volubility which was in contrast with the languid grace that had characterized her manner before Clifford made his appearance. It seemed to Acton that there was a spark of irritation in her eye--a note of irony (as when she spoke of Lizzie being never away from her mother) in her voice. If Madame M nster was irritated, Robert Acton was vaguely mystified; she began to move about the room again, and he looked at her without saying anything. Presently she took out her watch, and, glancing at it, declared that it was three o'clock in the morning and that he must go. "I have not been here an hour," he said, "and they are still sitting up at the other house. You can see the lights. Your brother has not come in." "Oh, at the other house," cried Eugenia, "they are terrible people! I don't know what they may do over there. I am a quiet little humdrum woman; I have rigid rules and I keep them. One of them is not to have visitors in the small hours--especially clever men like you. So good-night!" Decidedly, the Baroness was incisive; and though Acton bade her good-night and departed, he was still a good deal mystified. The next day Clifford Wentworth came to see Lizzie, and Acton, who was at home and saw him pass through the garden, took note of the circumstance. He had a natural desire to make it tally with Madame M nster's account of Clifford's disaffection; but his ingenuity, finding itself unequal to the task, resolved at last to ask help of the young man's candor. He waited till he saw him going away, and then he went out and overtook him in the grounds. "I wish very much you would answer me a question," Acton said. "What were you doing, last night, at Madame M nster's?" Clifford began to laugh and to blush, by no means like a young man with a romantic secret. "What did she tell you?" he asked. "That is exactly what I don't want to say." "Well, I want to tell you the same," said Clifford; "and unless I know it perhaps I can't." They had stopped in a garden path; Acton looked hard at his rosy young kinsman. "She said she couldn't fancy what had got into you; you appeared to have taken a violent dislike to her." Clifford stared, looking a little alarmed. "Oh, come," he growled, "you don't mean that!" "And that when--for common civility's sake--you came occasionally to the house you left her alone and spent your time in Felix's studio, under pretext of looking at his sketches." "Oh, come!" growled Clifford, again. "Did you ever know me to tell an untruth?" "Yes, lots of them!" said Clifford, seeing an opening, out of the discussion, for his sarcastic powers. "Well," he presently added, "I thought you were my father." "You knew someone was there?" "We heard you coming in." Acton meditated. "You had been with the Baroness, then?" "I was in the parlor. We heard your step outside. I thought it was my father." "And on that," asked Acton, "you ran away?" "She told me to go--to go out by the studio." Acton meditated more intensely; if there had been a chair at hand he would have sat down. "Why should she wish you not to meet your father?" "Well," said Clifford, "father doesn't like to see me there." Acton looked askance at his companion and forbore to make any comment upon this assertion. "Has he said so," he asked, "to the Baroness?" "Well, I hope not," said Clifford. "He hasn't said so--in so many words--to me. But I know it worries him; and I want to stop worrying him. The Baroness knows it, and she wants me to stop, too." "To stop coming to see her?" "I don't know about that; but to stop worrying father. Eugenia knows everything," Clifford added, with an air of knowingness of his own. "Ah," said Acton, interrogatively, "Eugenia knows everything?" "She knew it was not father coming in." "Then why did you go?" Clifford blushed and laughed afresh. "Well, I was afraid it was. And besides, she told me to go, at any rate." "Did she think it was I?" Acton asked. "She didn't say so." Again Robert Acton reflected. "But you didn't go," he presently said; "you came back." "I couldn't get out of the studio," Clifford rejoined. "The door was locked, and Felix has nailed some planks across the lower half of the confounded windows to make the light come in from above. So they were no use. I waited there a good while, and then, suddenly, I felt ashamed. I didn't want to be hiding away from my own father. I couldn't stand it any longer. I bolted out, and when I found it was you I was a little flurried. But Eugenia carried it off, didn't she?" Clifford added, in the tone of a young humorist whose perception had not been permanently clouded by the sense of his own discomfort. "Beautifully!" said Acton. "Especially," he continued, "when one remembers that you were very imprudent and that she must have been a good deal annoyed." "Oh," cried Clifford, with the indifference of a young man who feels that however he may have failed of felicity in behavior he is extremely just in his impressions, "Eugenia doesn't care for anything!" Acton hesitated a moment. "Thank you for telling me this," he said at last. And then, laying his hand on Clifford's shoulder, he added, "Tell me one thing more: are you by chance a little in love with the Baroness?" "No, sir!" said Clifford, almost shaking off his hand. CHAPTER X The first sunday that followed Robert Acton's return from Newport witnessed a change in the brilliant weather that had long prevailed. The rain began to fall and the day was cold and dreary. Mr. Wentworth and his daughters put on overshoes and went to church, and Felix Young, without overshoes, went also, holding an umbrella over Gertrude. It is to be feared that, in the whole observance, this was the privilege he most highly valued. The Baroness remained at home; she was in neither a cheerful nor a devotional mood. She had, however, never been, during her residence in the United States, what is called a regular attendant at divine service; and on this particular Sunday morning of which I began with speaking she stood at the window of her little drawing-room, watching the long arm of a rose tree that was attached to her piazza, but a portion of which had disengaged itself, sway to and fro, shake and gesticulate, against the dusky drizzle of the sky. Every now and then, in a gust of wind, the rose tree scattered a shower of water-drops against the window-pane; it appeared to have a kind of human movement--a menacing, warning intention. The room was very cold; Madame M nster put on a shawl and walked about. Then she determined to have some fire; and summoning her ancient negress, the contrast of whose polished ebony and whose crimson turban had been at first a source of satisfaction to her, she made arrangements for the production of a crackling flame. This old woman's name was Azarina. The Baroness had begun by thinking that there would be a savory wildness in her talk, and, for amusement, she had encouraged her to chatter. But Azarina was dry and prim; her conversation was anything but African; she reminded Eugenia of the tiresome old ladies she met in society. She knew, however, how to make a fire; so that after she had laid the logs, Eugenia, who was terribly bored, found a quarter of an hour's entertainment in sitting and watching them blaze and sputter. She had thought it very likely Robert Acton would come and see her; she had not met him since that infelicitous evening. But the morning waned without his coming; several times she thought she heard his step on the piazza; but it was only a window-shutter shaking in a rain-gust. The Baroness, since the beginning of that episode in her career of which a slight sketch has been attempted in these pages, had had many moments of irritation. But today her irritation had a peculiar keenness; it appeared to feed upon itself. It urged her to do something; but it suggested no particularly profitable line of action. If she could have done something at the moment, on the spot, she would have stepped upon a European steamer and turned her back, with a kind of rapture, upon that profoundly mortifying failure, her visit to her American relations. It is not exactly apparent why she should have termed this enterprise a failure, inasmuch as she had been treated with the highest distinction for which allowance had been made in American institutions. Her irritation came, at bottom, from the sense, which, always present, had suddenly grown acute, that the social soil on this big, vague continent was somehow not adapted for growing those plants whose fragrance she especially inclined to inhale and by which she liked to see herself surrounded--a species of vegetation for which she carried a collection of seedlings, as we may say, in her pocket. She found her chief happiness in the sense of exerting a certain power and making a certain impression; and now she felt the annoyance of a rather wearied swimmer who, on nearing shore, to land, finds a smooth straight wall of rock when he had counted upon a clean firm beach. Her power, in the American air, seemed to have lost its prehensile attributes; the smooth wall of rock was insurmountable. _"Surely je n'en suis pas l ,"_ she said to herself, "that I let it make me uncomfortable that a Mr. Robert Acton shouldn't honor me with a visit!" Yet she was vexed that he had not come; and she was vexed at her vexation. Her brother, at least, came in, stamping in the hall and shaking the wet from his coat. In a moment he entered the room, with a glow in his cheek and half-a-dozen rain-drops glistening on his moustache. "Ah, you have a fire," he said. _"Les beaux jours sont pass s,"_ replied the Baroness. "Never, never! They have only begun," Felix declared, planting himself before the hearth. He turned his back to the fire, placed his hands behind him, extended his legs and looked away through the window with an expression of face which seemed to denote the perception of rose-color even in the tints of a wet Sunday. His sister, from her chair, looked up at him, watching him; and what she saw in his face was not grateful to her present mood. She was puzzled by many things, but her brother's disposition was a frequent source of wonder to her. I say frequent and not constant, for there were long periods during which she gave her attention to other problems. Sometimes she had said to herself that his happy temper, his eternal gaiety, was an affectation, a _pose_; but she was vaguely conscious that during the present summer he had been a highly successful comedian. They had never yet had an explanation; she had not known the need of one. Felix was presumably following the bent of his disinterested genius, and she felt that she had no advice to give him that he would understand. With this, there was always a certain element of comfort about Felix--the assurance that he would not interfere. He was very delicate, this pure-minded Felix; in effect, he was her brother, and Madame M nster felt that there was a great propriety, every way, in that. It is true that Felix was delicate; he was not fond of explanations with his sister; this was one of the very few things in the world about which he was uncomfortable. But now he was not thinking of anything uncomfortable. "Dear brother," said Eugenia at last, "do stop making _les yeux doux_ at the rain." "With pleasure. I will make them at you!" answered Felix. "How much longer," asked Eugenia, in a moment, "do you propose to remain in this lovely spot?" Felix stared. "Do you want to go away--already?" "'Already' is delicious. I am not so happy as you." Felix dropped into a chair, looking at the fire. "The fact is I _am_ happy," he said in his light, clear tone. "And do you propose to spend your life in making love to Gertrude Wentworth?" "Yes!" said Felix, smiling sidewise at his sister. The Baroness returned his glance, much more gravely; and then, "Do you like her?" she asked. "Don't you?" Felix demanded. The Baroness was silent a moment. "I will answer you in the words of the gentleman who was asked if he liked music: _'Je ne la crains pas!'_" "She admires you immensely," said Felix. "I don't care for that. Other women should not admire one." "They should dislike you?" Again Madame M nster hesitated. "They should hate me! It's a measure of the time I have been losing here that they don't." "No time is lost in which one has been happy!" said Felix, with a bright sententiousness which may well have been a little irritating. "And in which," rejoined his sister, with a harsher laugh, "one has secured the affections of a young lady with a fortune!" Felix explained, very candidly and seriously. "I have secured Gertrude's affection, but I am by no means sure that I have secured her fortune. That may come--or it may not." "Ah, well, it _may!_ That's the great point." "It depends upon her father. He doesn't smile upon our union. You know he wants her to marry Mr. Brand." "I know nothing about it!" cried the Baroness. "Please to put on a log." Felix complied with her request and sat watching the quickening of the flame. Presently his sister added, "And you propose to elope with mademoiselle?" "By no means. I don't wish to do anything that's disagreeable to Mr. Wentworth. He has been far too kind to us." "But you must choose between pleasing yourself and pleasing him." "I want to please everyone!" exclaimed Felix, joyously. "I have a good conscience. I made up my mind at the outset that it was not my place to make love to Gertrude." "So, to simplify matters, she made love to you!" Felix looked at his sister with sudden gravity. "You say you are not afraid of her," he said. "But perhaps you ought to be--a little. She's a very clever person." "I begin to see it!" cried the Baroness. Her brother, making no rejoinder, leaned back in his chair, and there was a long silence. At last, with an altered accent, Madame M nster put another question. "You expect, at any rate, to marry?" "I shall be greatly disappointed if we don't." "A disappointment or two will do you good!" the Baroness declared. "And, afterwards, do you mean to turn American?" "It seems to me I am a very good American already. But we shall go to Europe. Gertrude wants extremely to see the world." "Ah, like me, when I came here!" said the Baroness, with a little laugh. "No, not like you," Felix rejoined, looking at his sister with a certain gentle seriousness. While he looked at her she rose from her chair, and he also got up. "Gertrude is not at all like you," he went on; "but in her own way she is almost as clever." He paused a moment; his soul was full of an agreeable feeling and of a lively disposition to express it. His sister, to his spiritual vision, was always like the lunar disk when only a part of it is lighted. The shadow on this bright surface seemed to him to expand and to contract; but whatever its proportions, he always appreciated the moonlight. He looked at the Baroness, and then he kissed her. "I am very much in | ask | How many times the word 'ask' appears in the text? | 3 |
uttered an oath at the small amount of change he found. As he uttered it, the man with the pistol savagely said, "Jerk out his watch! We might as well get all we can out of the job!" The man with the stake was on the point of laying hold of the chain where there was a sound of footsteps coming towards him. "Get behind the fence! We haven't half searched him yet! Mind you keep shut now, if you don't want--" The man with the pistol made a significant gesture with it and, with his companion, pulled and pushed the Bishop down the alley and through a ragged, broken opening in the fence. The three stood still there in the shadow until the footsteps passed. "Now, then, have you got the watch?" asked the man with the pistol. "No, the chain is caught somewhere!" and the other man swore again. "Break it then!" "No, don't break it," the Bishop said, and it was the first time he had spoken. "The chain is the gift of a very dear friend. I should be sorry to have it broken." At the sound of the Bishop's voice the man with the pistol started as if he had been suddenly shot by his own weapon. With a quick movement of his other hand he turned the Bishop's head toward's what little light was shining from the alleyway, at the same time taking a step nearer. Then, to the amazement of his companion, he said roughly: "Leave the watch alone! We've got the money. That's enough!" "Enough! Fifty cents! You don't reckon--" Before the man with the stake could say another word he was confronted with the muzzle of the pistol turned from the Bishop's head towards his own. "Leave that watch be! And put back the money too. This is the Bishop we've held up--the Bishop--do you hear?" "And what of it! The President of the United States wouldn't be too good to hold up, if--" "I say, you put the money back, or in five seconds I'll blow a hole through your head that'll let in more sense than you have to spare now!" said the other. For a second the man with the stake seemed to hesitate at this strange turn in events, as if measuring his companion's intention. Then he hastily dropped the money back into the rifled pocket. "You can take your hands down, sir." The man lowered his weapon slowly, still keeping an eye on the other man, and speaking with rough respect. The Bishop slowly brought his arms to his side, and looked earnestly at the two men. In the dim light it was difficult to distinguish features. He was evidently free to go his way now, but he stood there making no movement. "You can go on. You needn't stay any longer on our account." The man who had acted as spokesman turned and sat down on a stone. The other man stood viciously digging his stake into the ground. "That's just what I am staying for," replied the Bishop. He sat down on a board that projected from the broken fence. "You must like our company. It is hard sometimes for people to tear themselves away from us," and the man standing up laughed coarsely. "Shut up!" exclaimed the other. "We're on the road to hell, though, that's sure enough. We need better company than ourselves and the devil." "If you would only allow me to be of any help," the Bishop spoke gently, even lovingly. The man on the stone stared at the Bishop through the darkness. After a moment of silence he spoke slowly like one who had finally decided upon a course he had at first rejected. "Do you remember ever seeing me before?" "No," said the Bishop. "The light is not very good and I have really not had a good look at you." "Do you know me now?" The man suddenly took off his hat and getting up from the stone walked over to the Bishop until they were near enough to touch each other. The man's hair was coal black except one spot on the top of his head about as large as the palm of the hand, which was white. The minute the Bishop saw that, he started. The memory of fifteen years ago began to stir in him. The man helped him. "Don't you remember one day back in '81 or '82 a man came to your house and told a story about his wife and child having been burned to death in a tenement fire in New York?" "Yes, I begin to remember now." The other man seemed to be interested. He ceased digging his stake in the ground and stood still listening. "Do you remember how you took me into your own house that night and spent all next day trying to find me a job? And how when you succeeded in getting me a place in a warehouse as foreman, I promised to quit drinking because you asked me to?" "I remember it now. I hope you have kept your promise." The man laughed savagely. Then he struck his hand against the fence with such sudden passion that he drew blood. "Kept it! I was drunk inside of a week! I've been drinking ever since. But I've never forgotten you nor your prayer. Do you remember the morning after I came to your house, after breakfast you had prayers and asked me to come in and sit with the rest? That got me! But my mother used to pray! I can see her now kneeling down by my bed when I was a lad. Father came in one night and kicked her while she was kneeling there by me. But I never forgot that prayer of yours that morning. You prayed for me just as mother used to, and you didn't seem to take 'count of the fact that I was ragged and tough-looking and more than half drunk when I rang your door bell. Oh, what a life I've lived! The saloon has housed me and homed me and made hell on earth for me. But that prayer stuck to me all the time. My promise not to drink was broken into a thousand pieces inside of two Sundays, and I lost the job you found for me and landed in a police station two days later, but I never forgot you nor your prayer. I don't know what good it has done me, but I never forgot it. And I won't do any harm to you nor let any one else. So you're free to go. That's why." The Bishop did not stir. Somewhere a church clock struck one. The man had put on his hat and gone back to his seat on the stone. The Bishop was thinking hard. "How long is it since you had work?" he asked, and the man standing up answered for the other. "More'n six months since either of us did anything to tell of; unless you count 'holding up' work. I call it pretty wearing kind of a job myself, especially when we put in a night like this and don't make nothin'." "Suppose I found good jobs for both of you? Would you quit this and begin all over?" "What's the use?" the man on the stone spoke sullenly. "I've reformed a hundred times. Every time I go down deeper. The devil's begun to foreclose on me already. It's too late." "No!" said the Bishop. And never before the most entranced audience had he felt the desire for souls burn up in him so strongly. All the time he sat there during the remarkable scene he prayed, "O Lord Jesus, give me the souls of these two for Thee! I am hungry for them. Give them to me!" "No!" the Bishop repeated. "What does God want of you two men? It doesn't so much matter what I want. But He wants just what I do in this case. You two men are of infinite value to Him." And then his wonderful memory came to his aid in an appeal such as no one on earth among men could make under such circumstances. He had remembered the man's name in spite of the wonderfully busy years that lay between his coming to the house and the present moment. "Burns," he said, and he yearned over the men with an unspeakable longing for them both, "if you and your friend here will go home with me tonight I will find you both places of honorable employment. I will believe in you and trust you. You are both comparatively young men. Why should God lose you? It is a great thing to win the love of the Great Father. It is a small thing that I should love you. But if you need to feel again that there is love in the world, you will believe me when I say, my brothers, that I love you, and in the name of Him who was crucified for our sins I cannot bear to see you miss the glory of the human life. Come, be men! Make another try for it, God helping you. No one but God and you and myself need ever know anything of this tonight. He has forgiven it the minute you ask Him to. You will find that true. Come! We'll fight it out together, you two and I. It's worth fighting for, everlasting life is. It was the sinner that Christ came to help. I'll do what I can for you. O God, give me the souls of these two men!" and he broke into a prayer to God that was a continuation of his appeal to the men. His pent-up feeling had no other outlet. Before he had prayed many moments Burns was sitting with his face buried in his hands, sobbing. Where were his mother's prayers now? They were adding to the power of the Bishop's. And the other man, harder, less moved, without a previous knowledge of the Bishop, leaned back against the fence, stolid at first. But as the prayer went on, he was moved by it. What force of the Holy Spirit swept over his dulled, brutal, coarsened life, nothing but the eternal records of the recording angel can ever disclose. But the same supernatural Presence that smote Paul on the road to Damascus, and poured through Henry Maxwell's church the morning he asked disciples to follow in Jesus' steps, and had again broken irresistibly over the Nazareth Avenue congregation, now manifested Himself in this foul corner of the mighty city and over the natures of these two sinful sunken men, apparently lost to all the pleadings of conscience and memory and God. The prayer seemed to red open the crust that for years had surrounded them and shut them off from divine communication. And they themselves were thoroughly startled by it. The Bishop ceased, and at first he himself did not realize what had happened. Neither did they. Burns still sat with his head bowed between his knees. The man leaning against the fence looked at the Bishop with a face in which new emotions of awe, repentance, astonishment and a broken gleam of joy struggled for expression. The Bishop rose. "Come, my brothers. God is good. You shall stay at the Settlement tonight, and I will make good my promise as to the work." The two men followed him in silence. When they reached the Settlement it was after two o'clock. He let them in and led them to a room. At the door he paused a moment. His tall, commanding figure stood in the doorway and his pale face was illuminated with the divine glory. "God bless you, my brothers!" he said, and leaving them his benediction he went away. Chapter Twenty-eight IT WAS the afternoon of that morning when Burns was installed in his new position as assistant janitor that he was cleaning off the front steps of the Settlement, when he paused a moment and stood up to look about him. The first thing he noticed was a beer sign just across the alley. He could almost touch it with his broom from where he stood. Over the street immediately opposite were two large saloons, and a little farther down were three more. Suddenly the door of the nearest saloon opened and a man came out. At the same time two more went in. A strong odor of beer floated up to Burns as he stood on the steps. He clutched his broom handle tightly and began to sweep again. He had one foot on the porch and another on the steps just below. He took another step down, still sweeping. The sweat stood on his forehead although the day was frosty and the air chill. The saloon door opened again and three or four men came out. A child went in with a pail, and came out a moment later with a quart of beer. The child went by on the sidewalk just below him, and the odor of the beer came up to him. He took another step down, still sweeping desperately. His fingers were purple as he clutched the handle of the broom. Then suddenly he pulled himself up one step and swept over the spot he had just cleaned. He then dragged himself by a tremendous effort back to the floor of the porch and went over into the corner of it farthest from the saloon and began to sweep there. "O God!" he cried, "if the Bishop would only come back!" The Bishop had gone out with Dr. Bruce somewhere, and there was no one about that he knew. He swept in the corner for two or three minutes. His face was drawn with the agony of his conflict. Gradually he edged out again towards the steps and began to go down them. He looked towards the sidewalk and saw that he had left one step unswept. The sight seemed to give him a reasonable excuse for going down there to finish his sweeping. He was on the sidewalk now, sweeping the last step, with his face towards the Settlement and his back turned partly on the saloon across the alley. He swept the step a dozen times. The sweat rolled over his face and dropped down at his feet. By degrees he felt that he was drawn over towards that end of the step nearest the saloon. He could smell the beer and rum now as the fumes rose around him. It was like the infernal sulphur of the lowest hell, and yet it dragged him as by a giant's hand nearer its source. He was down in the middle of the sidewalk now, still sweeping. He cleared the space in front of the Settlement and even went out into the gutter and swept that. He took off his hat and rubbed his sleeve over his face. His lips were pallid and his teeth chattered. He trembled all over like a palsied man and staggered back and forth as if he was already drunk. His soul shook within him. He had crossed over the little piece of stone flagging that measured the width of the alley, and now he stood in front of the saloon, looking at the sign, and staring into the window at the pile of whiskey and beer bottles arranged in a great pyramid inside. He moistened his lips with his tongue and took a step forward, looking around him stealthily. The door suddenly opened again and someone came out. Again the hot, penetrating smell of liquor swept out into the cold air, and he took another step towards the saloon door which had shut behind the customer. As he laid his fingers on the door handle, a tall figure came around the corner. It was the Bishop. He seized Burns by the arm and dragged him back upon the sidewalk. The frenzied man, now mad for a drink, shrieked out a curse and struck at his friend savagely. It is doubtful if he really knew at first who was snatching him away from his ruin. The blow fell upon the Bishop's face and cut a gash in his cheek. He never uttered a word. But over his face a look of majestic sorrow swept. He picked Burns up as if he had been a child and actually carried him up the steps and into the house. He put him down in the hall and then shut the door and put his back against it. Burns fell on his knees sobbing and praying. The Bishop stood there panting with his exertion, although Burns was a slightly-built man and had not been a great weight for a man of his strength to carry. He was moved with unspeakable pity. "Pray, Burns--pray as you never prayed before! Nothing else will save you!" "O God! Pray with me. Save me! Oh, save me from my hell!" cried Burns. And, the Bishop knelt by him in the hall and prayed as only he could pray. After that they rose and Burns went to his room. He came out of it that evening like a humble child. And the Bishop went his way older from that experience, bearing on his body the marks of the Lord Jesus. Truly he was learning something of what it means to walk in His steps. But the saloon! It stood there, and all the others lined the street like so many traps set for Burns. How long would the man be able to resist the smell of the damnable stuff? The Bishop went out on the porch. The air of the whole city seemed to be impregnated with the odor of beer. "How long, O Lord, how long?" he prayed. Dr. Bruce came out, and the two friends talked about Burns and his temptation. "Did you ever make any inquiries about the ownership of this property adjoining us?" the Bishop asked. "No, I haven't taken time for it. I will now if you think it would be worth while. But what can we do, Edward, against the saloon in this great city? It is as firmly established as the churches or politics. What power can ever remove it?" "God will do it in time, as He has removed slavery," was the grave reply. "Meanwhile I think we have a right to know who controls this saloon so near the Settlement." "I'll find out," said Dr. Bruce. Two days later he walked into the business office of one of the members of Nazareth Avenue Church and asked to see him a few moments. He was cordially received by his old parishioner, who welcomed him into his room and urged him to take all the time he wanted. "I called to see you about that property next the Settlement where the Bishop and myself now are, you know. I am going to speak plainly, because life is too short and too serious for us both to have any foolish hesitation about this matter. Clayton, do you think it is right to rent that property for a saloon?" Dr. Bruce's question was as direct and uncompromising as he had meant it to be. The effect of it on his old parishioner was instantaneous. The hot blood mounted to the face of the man who sat there beneath a picture of business activity in a great city. Then he grew pale, dropped his head on his hands, and when he raised it again Dr. Bruce was amazed to see a tear roll over his face. "Doctor, did you know that I took the pledge that morning with the others?" "Yes, I remember." "But you never knew how I have been tormented over my failure to keep it in this instance. That saloon property has been the temptation of the devil to me. It is the best paying investment at present that I have. And yet it was only a minute before you came in here that I was in an agony of remorse to think how I was letting a little earthly gain tempt me into a denial of the very Christ I had promised to follow. I knew well enough that He would never rent property for such a purpose. There is no need, Dr. Bruce, for you to say a word more." Clayton held out his hand and Dr. Bruce grasped it and shook it hard. After a little he went away. But it was a long time afterwards that he learned all the truth about the struggle that Clayton had known. It was only a part of the history that belonged to Nazareth Avenue Church since that memorable morning when the Holy Spirit sanctioned the Christ-like pledge. Not even the Bishop and Dr. Bruce, moving as they now did in the very presence itself of divine impulses, knew yet that over the whole sinful city the Spirit was brooding with mighty eagerness, waiting for the disciples to arise to the call of sacrifice and suffering, touching hearts long dull and cold, making business men and money-makers uneasy in their absorption by the one great struggle for more wealth, and stirring through the church as never in all the city's history the church had been moved. The Bishop and Dr. Bruce had already seen some wonderful things in their brief life at the Settlement. They were to see far greater soon, more astonishing revelations of the divine power than they had supposed possible in this age of the world. Within a month the saloon next the Settlement was closed. The saloon-keeper's lease had expired, and Clayton not only closed the property to the whiskey men, but offered the building to the Bishop and Dr. Bruce to use for the Settlement work, which had now grown so large that the building they had first rented was not sufficient for the different industries that were planned. One of the most important of these was the pure-food department suggested by Felicia. It was not a month after Clayton turned the saloon property over to the Settlement that Felicia found herself installed in the very room where souls had been lost, as head of the department not only of cooking but of a course of housekeeping for girls who wished to go out to service. She was now a resident of the Settlement, and found a home with Mrs. Bruce and the other young women from the city who were residents. Martha, the violinist, remained at the place where the Bishop had first discovered the two girls, and came over to the Settlement certain evenings to give lessons in music. "Felicia, tell us your plan in full now," said the Bishop one evening when, in a rare interval of rest from the great pressure of work, he was with Dr. Bruce, and Felicia had come in from the other building. "Well, I have long thought of the hired girl problem," said Felicia with an air of wisdom that made Mrs. Bruce smile as she looked at the enthusiastic, vital beauty of this young girl, transformed into a new creature by the promise she had made to live the Christ-like life. "And I have reached certain conclusions in regard to it that you men are not yet able to fathom, but Mrs. Bruce will understand me." "We acknowledge our infancy, Felicia. Go on," said the Bishop humbly. "Then this is what I propose to do. The old saloon building is large enough to arrange into a suite of rooms that will represent an ordinary house. My plan is to have it so arranged, and then teach housekeeping and cooking to girls who will afterwards go out to service. The course will be six months' long; in that time I will teach plain cooking, neatness, quickness, and a love of good work." "Hold on, Felicia!" the Bishop interrupted, "this is not an age of miracles!" "Then we will make it one," replied Felicia. "I know this seems like an impossibility, but I want to try it. I know a score of girls already who will take the course, and if we can once establish something like an esprit de corps among the girls themselves, I am sure it will be of great value to them. I know already that the pure food is working a revolution in many families." "Felicia, if you can accomplish half what you propose it will bless this community," said Mrs. Bruce. "I don't see how you can do it, but I say, God bless you, as you try." "So say we all!" cried Dr. Bruce and the Bishop, and Felicia plunged into the working out of her plan with the enthusiasm of her discipleship which every day grew more and more practical and serviceable. It must be said here that Felicia's plan succeeded beyond all expectations. She developed wonderful powers of persuasion, and taught her girls with astonishing rapidity to do all sorts of housework. In time, the graduates of Felicia's cooking school came to be prized by housekeepers all over the city. But that is anticipating our story. The history of the Settlement has never yet been written. When it is Felicia's part will be found of very great importance. The depth of winter found Chicago presenting, as every great city of the world presents to the eyes of Christendom the marked contrast between riches and poverty, between culture, refinement, luxury, ease, and ignorance, depravity, destitution and the bitter struggle for bread. It was a hard winter but a gay winter. Never had there been such a succession of parties, receptions, balls, dinners, banquets, fetes, gayeties. Never had the opera and the theatre been so crowded with fashionable audiences. Never had there been such a lavish display of jewels and fine dresses and equipages. And on the other hand, never had the deep want and suffering been so cruel, so sharp, so murderous. Never had the winds blown so chilling over the lake and through the thin shells of tenements in the neighborhood of the Settlement. Never had the pressure for food and fuel and clothes been so urgently thrust up against the people of the city in their most importunate and ghastly form. Night after night the Bishop and Dr. Bruce with their helpers went out and helped save men and women and children from the torture of physical privation. Vast quantities of food and clothing and large sums of money were donated by the churches, the charitable societies, the civic authorities and the benevolent associations. But the personal touch of the Christian disciple was very hard to secure for personal work. Where was the discipleship that was obeying the Master's command to go itself to the suffering and give itself with its gift in order to make the gift of value in time to come? The Bishop found his heart sing within him as he faced this fact more than any other. Men would give money who would not think of giving themselves. And the money they gave did not represent any real sacrifice because they did not miss it. They gave what was the easiest to give, what hurt them the least. Where did the sacrifice come in? Was this following Jesus? Was this going with Him all the way? He had been to members of his own aristocratic, splendidly wealthy congregations, and was appalled to find how few men and women of that luxurious class in the churches would really suffer any genuine inconvenience for the sake of suffering humanity. Is charity the giving of worn-out garments? Is it a ten-dollar bill given to a paid visitor or secretary of some benevolent organization in the church? Shall the man never go and give his gift himself? Shall the woman never deny herself her reception or her party or her musicale, and go and actually touch, herself, the foul, sinful sore of diseased humanity as it festers in the great metropolis? Shall charity be conveniently and easily done through some organization? Is it possible to organize the affections so that love shall work disagreeable things by proxy? All this the Bishop asked as he plunged deeper into the sin and sorrow of that bitter winter. He was bearing his cross with joy. But he burned and fought within over the shifting of personal love by the many upon the hearts of the few. And still, silently, powerfully, resistlessly, the Holy Spirit was moving through the churches, even the aristocratic, wealthy, ease-loving members who shunned the terrors of the social problem as they would shun a contagious disease. Chapter Twenty-nine THE breakfast hour at the settlement was the one hour in the day when the whole family found a little breathing space to fellowship together. It was an hour of relaxation. There was a great deal of good-natured repartee and much real wit and enjoyable fun at this hour. The Bishop told his best stories. Dr. Bruce was at his best in anecdote. This company of disciples was healthily humorous in spite of the atmosphere of sorrow that constantly surrounded them. In fact, the Bishop often said the faculty of humor was as God-given as any other and in his own case it was the only safety valve he had for the tremendous pressure put upon him. This particular morning he was reading extracts from a morning paper for the benefit of the others. Suddenly he paused and his face instantly grew stern and sad. The rest looked up and a hush fell over the table. "Shot and killed while taking a lump of coal from a car! His family was freezing and he had had no work for six months. Six children and a wife all packed into a cabin with three rooms, on the West Side. One child wrapped in rags | stay | How many times the word 'stay' appears in the text? | 2 |
uttered an oath at the small amount of change he found. As he uttered it, the man with the pistol savagely said, "Jerk out his watch! We might as well get all we can out of the job!" The man with the stake was on the point of laying hold of the chain where there was a sound of footsteps coming towards him. "Get behind the fence! We haven't half searched him yet! Mind you keep shut now, if you don't want--" The man with the pistol made a significant gesture with it and, with his companion, pulled and pushed the Bishop down the alley and through a ragged, broken opening in the fence. The three stood still there in the shadow until the footsteps passed. "Now, then, have you got the watch?" asked the man with the pistol. "No, the chain is caught somewhere!" and the other man swore again. "Break it then!" "No, don't break it," the Bishop said, and it was the first time he had spoken. "The chain is the gift of a very dear friend. I should be sorry to have it broken." At the sound of the Bishop's voice the man with the pistol started as if he had been suddenly shot by his own weapon. With a quick movement of his other hand he turned the Bishop's head toward's what little light was shining from the alleyway, at the same time taking a step nearer. Then, to the amazement of his companion, he said roughly: "Leave the watch alone! We've got the money. That's enough!" "Enough! Fifty cents! You don't reckon--" Before the man with the stake could say another word he was confronted with the muzzle of the pistol turned from the Bishop's head towards his own. "Leave that watch be! And put back the money too. This is the Bishop we've held up--the Bishop--do you hear?" "And what of it! The President of the United States wouldn't be too good to hold up, if--" "I say, you put the money back, or in five seconds I'll blow a hole through your head that'll let in more sense than you have to spare now!" said the other. For a second the man with the stake seemed to hesitate at this strange turn in events, as if measuring his companion's intention. Then he hastily dropped the money back into the rifled pocket. "You can take your hands down, sir." The man lowered his weapon slowly, still keeping an eye on the other man, and speaking with rough respect. The Bishop slowly brought his arms to his side, and looked earnestly at the two men. In the dim light it was difficult to distinguish features. He was evidently free to go his way now, but he stood there making no movement. "You can go on. You needn't stay any longer on our account." The man who had acted as spokesman turned and sat down on a stone. The other man stood viciously digging his stake into the ground. "That's just what I am staying for," replied the Bishop. He sat down on a board that projected from the broken fence. "You must like our company. It is hard sometimes for people to tear themselves away from us," and the man standing up laughed coarsely. "Shut up!" exclaimed the other. "We're on the road to hell, though, that's sure enough. We need better company than ourselves and the devil." "If you would only allow me to be of any help," the Bishop spoke gently, even lovingly. The man on the stone stared at the Bishop through the darkness. After a moment of silence he spoke slowly like one who had finally decided upon a course he had at first rejected. "Do you remember ever seeing me before?" "No," said the Bishop. "The light is not very good and I have really not had a good look at you." "Do you know me now?" The man suddenly took off his hat and getting up from the stone walked over to the Bishop until they were near enough to touch each other. The man's hair was coal black except one spot on the top of his head about as large as the palm of the hand, which was white. The minute the Bishop saw that, he started. The memory of fifteen years ago began to stir in him. The man helped him. "Don't you remember one day back in '81 or '82 a man came to your house and told a story about his wife and child having been burned to death in a tenement fire in New York?" "Yes, I begin to remember now." The other man seemed to be interested. He ceased digging his stake in the ground and stood still listening. "Do you remember how you took me into your own house that night and spent all next day trying to find me a job? And how when you succeeded in getting me a place in a warehouse as foreman, I promised to quit drinking because you asked me to?" "I remember it now. I hope you have kept your promise." The man laughed savagely. Then he struck his hand against the fence with such sudden passion that he drew blood. "Kept it! I was drunk inside of a week! I've been drinking ever since. But I've never forgotten you nor your prayer. Do you remember the morning after I came to your house, after breakfast you had prayers and asked me to come in and sit with the rest? That got me! But my mother used to pray! I can see her now kneeling down by my bed when I was a lad. Father came in one night and kicked her while she was kneeling there by me. But I never forgot that prayer of yours that morning. You prayed for me just as mother used to, and you didn't seem to take 'count of the fact that I was ragged and tough-looking and more than half drunk when I rang your door bell. Oh, what a life I've lived! The saloon has housed me and homed me and made hell on earth for me. But that prayer stuck to me all the time. My promise not to drink was broken into a thousand pieces inside of two Sundays, and I lost the job you found for me and landed in a police station two days later, but I never forgot you nor your prayer. I don't know what good it has done me, but I never forgot it. And I won't do any harm to you nor let any one else. So you're free to go. That's why." The Bishop did not stir. Somewhere a church clock struck one. The man had put on his hat and gone back to his seat on the stone. The Bishop was thinking hard. "How long is it since you had work?" he asked, and the man standing up answered for the other. "More'n six months since either of us did anything to tell of; unless you count 'holding up' work. I call it pretty wearing kind of a job myself, especially when we put in a night like this and don't make nothin'." "Suppose I found good jobs for both of you? Would you quit this and begin all over?" "What's the use?" the man on the stone spoke sullenly. "I've reformed a hundred times. Every time I go down deeper. The devil's begun to foreclose on me already. It's too late." "No!" said the Bishop. And never before the most entranced audience had he felt the desire for souls burn up in him so strongly. All the time he sat there during the remarkable scene he prayed, "O Lord Jesus, give me the souls of these two for Thee! I am hungry for them. Give them to me!" "No!" the Bishop repeated. "What does God want of you two men? It doesn't so much matter what I want. But He wants just what I do in this case. You two men are of infinite value to Him." And then his wonderful memory came to his aid in an appeal such as no one on earth among men could make under such circumstances. He had remembered the man's name in spite of the wonderfully busy years that lay between his coming to the house and the present moment. "Burns," he said, and he yearned over the men with an unspeakable longing for them both, "if you and your friend here will go home with me tonight I will find you both places of honorable employment. I will believe in you and trust you. You are both comparatively young men. Why should God lose you? It is a great thing to win the love of the Great Father. It is a small thing that I should love you. But if you need to feel again that there is love in the world, you will believe me when I say, my brothers, that I love you, and in the name of Him who was crucified for our sins I cannot bear to see you miss the glory of the human life. Come, be men! Make another try for it, God helping you. No one but God and you and myself need ever know anything of this tonight. He has forgiven it the minute you ask Him to. You will find that true. Come! We'll fight it out together, you two and I. It's worth fighting for, everlasting life is. It was the sinner that Christ came to help. I'll do what I can for you. O God, give me the souls of these two men!" and he broke into a prayer to God that was a continuation of his appeal to the men. His pent-up feeling had no other outlet. Before he had prayed many moments Burns was sitting with his face buried in his hands, sobbing. Where were his mother's prayers now? They were adding to the power of the Bishop's. And the other man, harder, less moved, without a previous knowledge of the Bishop, leaned back against the fence, stolid at first. But as the prayer went on, he was moved by it. What force of the Holy Spirit swept over his dulled, brutal, coarsened life, nothing but the eternal records of the recording angel can ever disclose. But the same supernatural Presence that smote Paul on the road to Damascus, and poured through Henry Maxwell's church the morning he asked disciples to follow in Jesus' steps, and had again broken irresistibly over the Nazareth Avenue congregation, now manifested Himself in this foul corner of the mighty city and over the natures of these two sinful sunken men, apparently lost to all the pleadings of conscience and memory and God. The prayer seemed to red open the crust that for years had surrounded them and shut them off from divine communication. And they themselves were thoroughly startled by it. The Bishop ceased, and at first he himself did not realize what had happened. Neither did they. Burns still sat with his head bowed between his knees. The man leaning against the fence looked at the Bishop with a face in which new emotions of awe, repentance, astonishment and a broken gleam of joy struggled for expression. The Bishop rose. "Come, my brothers. God is good. You shall stay at the Settlement tonight, and I will make good my promise as to the work." The two men followed him in silence. When they reached the Settlement it was after two o'clock. He let them in and led them to a room. At the door he paused a moment. His tall, commanding figure stood in the doorway and his pale face was illuminated with the divine glory. "God bless you, my brothers!" he said, and leaving them his benediction he went away. Chapter Twenty-eight IT WAS the afternoon of that morning when Burns was installed in his new position as assistant janitor that he was cleaning off the front steps of the Settlement, when he paused a moment and stood up to look about him. The first thing he noticed was a beer sign just across the alley. He could almost touch it with his broom from where he stood. Over the street immediately opposite were two large saloons, and a little farther down were three more. Suddenly the door of the nearest saloon opened and a man came out. At the same time two more went in. A strong odor of beer floated up to Burns as he stood on the steps. He clutched his broom handle tightly and began to sweep again. He had one foot on the porch and another on the steps just below. He took another step down, still sweeping. The sweat stood on his forehead although the day was frosty and the air chill. The saloon door opened again and three or four men came out. A child went in with a pail, and came out a moment later with a quart of beer. The child went by on the sidewalk just below him, and the odor of the beer came up to him. He took another step down, still sweeping desperately. His fingers were purple as he clutched the handle of the broom. Then suddenly he pulled himself up one step and swept over the spot he had just cleaned. He then dragged himself by a tremendous effort back to the floor of the porch and went over into the corner of it farthest from the saloon and began to sweep there. "O God!" he cried, "if the Bishop would only come back!" The Bishop had gone out with Dr. Bruce somewhere, and there was no one about that he knew. He swept in the corner for two or three minutes. His face was drawn with the agony of his conflict. Gradually he edged out again towards the steps and began to go down them. He looked towards the sidewalk and saw that he had left one step unswept. The sight seemed to give him a reasonable excuse for going down there to finish his sweeping. He was on the sidewalk now, sweeping the last step, with his face towards the Settlement and his back turned partly on the saloon across the alley. He swept the step a dozen times. The sweat rolled over his face and dropped down at his feet. By degrees he felt that he was drawn over towards that end of the step nearest the saloon. He could smell the beer and rum now as the fumes rose around him. It was like the infernal sulphur of the lowest hell, and yet it dragged him as by a giant's hand nearer its source. He was down in the middle of the sidewalk now, still sweeping. He cleared the space in front of the Settlement and even went out into the gutter and swept that. He took off his hat and rubbed his sleeve over his face. His lips were pallid and his teeth chattered. He trembled all over like a palsied man and staggered back and forth as if he was already drunk. His soul shook within him. He had crossed over the little piece of stone flagging that measured the width of the alley, and now he stood in front of the saloon, looking at the sign, and staring into the window at the pile of whiskey and beer bottles arranged in a great pyramid inside. He moistened his lips with his tongue and took a step forward, looking around him stealthily. The door suddenly opened again and someone came out. Again the hot, penetrating smell of liquor swept out into the cold air, and he took another step towards the saloon door which had shut behind the customer. As he laid his fingers on the door handle, a tall figure came around the corner. It was the Bishop. He seized Burns by the arm and dragged him back upon the sidewalk. The frenzied man, now mad for a drink, shrieked out a curse and struck at his friend savagely. It is doubtful if he really knew at first who was snatching him away from his ruin. The blow fell upon the Bishop's face and cut a gash in his cheek. He never uttered a word. But over his face a look of majestic sorrow swept. He picked Burns up as if he had been a child and actually carried him up the steps and into the house. He put him down in the hall and then shut the door and put his back against it. Burns fell on his knees sobbing and praying. The Bishop stood there panting with his exertion, although Burns was a slightly-built man and had not been a great weight for a man of his strength to carry. He was moved with unspeakable pity. "Pray, Burns--pray as you never prayed before! Nothing else will save you!" "O God! Pray with me. Save me! Oh, save me from my hell!" cried Burns. And, the Bishop knelt by him in the hall and prayed as only he could pray. After that they rose and Burns went to his room. He came out of it that evening like a humble child. And the Bishop went his way older from that experience, bearing on his body the marks of the Lord Jesus. Truly he was learning something of what it means to walk in His steps. But the saloon! It stood there, and all the others lined the street like so many traps set for Burns. How long would the man be able to resist the smell of the damnable stuff? The Bishop went out on the porch. The air of the whole city seemed to be impregnated with the odor of beer. "How long, O Lord, how long?" he prayed. Dr. Bruce came out, and the two friends talked about Burns and his temptation. "Did you ever make any inquiries about the ownership of this property adjoining us?" the Bishop asked. "No, I haven't taken time for it. I will now if you think it would be worth while. But what can we do, Edward, against the saloon in this great city? It is as firmly established as the churches or politics. What power can ever remove it?" "God will do it in time, as He has removed slavery," was the grave reply. "Meanwhile I think we have a right to know who controls this saloon so near the Settlement." "I'll find out," said Dr. Bruce. Two days later he walked into the business office of one of the members of Nazareth Avenue Church and asked to see him a few moments. He was cordially received by his old parishioner, who welcomed him into his room and urged him to take all the time he wanted. "I called to see you about that property next the Settlement where the Bishop and myself now are, you know. I am going to speak plainly, because life is too short and too serious for us both to have any foolish hesitation about this matter. Clayton, do you think it is right to rent that property for a saloon?" Dr. Bruce's question was as direct and uncompromising as he had meant it to be. The effect of it on his old parishioner was instantaneous. The hot blood mounted to the face of the man who sat there beneath a picture of business activity in a great city. Then he grew pale, dropped his head on his hands, and when he raised it again Dr. Bruce was amazed to see a tear roll over his face. "Doctor, did you know that I took the pledge that morning with the others?" "Yes, I remember." "But you never knew how I have been tormented over my failure to keep it in this instance. That saloon property has been the temptation of the devil to me. It is the best paying investment at present that I have. And yet it was only a minute before you came in here that I was in an agony of remorse to think how I was letting a little earthly gain tempt me into a denial of the very Christ I had promised to follow. I knew well enough that He would never rent property for such a purpose. There is no need, Dr. Bruce, for you to say a word more." Clayton held out his hand and Dr. Bruce grasped it and shook it hard. After a little he went away. But it was a long time afterwards that he learned all the truth about the struggle that Clayton had known. It was only a part of the history that belonged to Nazareth Avenue Church since that memorable morning when the Holy Spirit sanctioned the Christ-like pledge. Not even the Bishop and Dr. Bruce, moving as they now did in the very presence itself of divine impulses, knew yet that over the whole sinful city the Spirit was brooding with mighty eagerness, waiting for the disciples to arise to the call of sacrifice and suffering, touching hearts long dull and cold, making business men and money-makers uneasy in their absorption by the one great struggle for more wealth, and stirring through the church as never in all the city's history the church had been moved. The Bishop and Dr. Bruce had already seen some wonderful things in their brief life at the Settlement. They were to see far greater soon, more astonishing revelations of the divine power than they had supposed possible in this age of the world. Within a month the saloon next the Settlement was closed. The saloon-keeper's lease had expired, and Clayton not only closed the property to the whiskey men, but offered the building to the Bishop and Dr. Bruce to use for the Settlement work, which had now grown so large that the building they had first rented was not sufficient for the different industries that were planned. One of the most important of these was the pure-food department suggested by Felicia. It was not a month after Clayton turned the saloon property over to the Settlement that Felicia found herself installed in the very room where souls had been lost, as head of the department not only of cooking but of a course of housekeeping for girls who wished to go out to service. She was now a resident of the Settlement, and found a home with Mrs. Bruce and the other young women from the city who were residents. Martha, the violinist, remained at the place where the Bishop had first discovered the two girls, and came over to the Settlement certain evenings to give lessons in music. "Felicia, tell us your plan in full now," said the Bishop one evening when, in a rare interval of rest from the great pressure of work, he was with Dr. Bruce, and Felicia had come in from the other building. "Well, I have long thought of the hired girl problem," said Felicia with an air of wisdom that made Mrs. Bruce smile as she looked at the enthusiastic, vital beauty of this young girl, transformed into a new creature by the promise she had made to live the Christ-like life. "And I have reached certain conclusions in regard to it that you men are not yet able to fathom, but Mrs. Bruce will understand me." "We acknowledge our infancy, Felicia. Go on," said the Bishop humbly. "Then this is what I propose to do. The old saloon building is large enough to arrange into a suite of rooms that will represent an ordinary house. My plan is to have it so arranged, and then teach housekeeping and cooking to girls who will afterwards go out to service. The course will be six months' long; in that time I will teach plain cooking, neatness, quickness, and a love of good work." "Hold on, Felicia!" the Bishop interrupted, "this is not an age of miracles!" "Then we will make it one," replied Felicia. "I know this seems like an impossibility, but I want to try it. I know a score of girls already who will take the course, and if we can once establish something like an esprit de corps among the girls themselves, I am sure it will be of great value to them. I know already that the pure food is working a revolution in many families." "Felicia, if you can accomplish half what you propose it will bless this community," said Mrs. Bruce. "I don't see how you can do it, but I say, God bless you, as you try." "So say we all!" cried Dr. Bruce and the Bishop, and Felicia plunged into the working out of her plan with the enthusiasm of her discipleship which every day grew more and more practical and serviceable. It must be said here that Felicia's plan succeeded beyond all expectations. She developed wonderful powers of persuasion, and taught her girls with astonishing rapidity to do all sorts of housework. In time, the graduates of Felicia's cooking school came to be prized by housekeepers all over the city. But that is anticipating our story. The history of the Settlement has never yet been written. When it is Felicia's part will be found of very great importance. The depth of winter found Chicago presenting, as every great city of the world presents to the eyes of Christendom the marked contrast between riches and poverty, between culture, refinement, luxury, ease, and ignorance, depravity, destitution and the bitter struggle for bread. It was a hard winter but a gay winter. Never had there been such a succession of parties, receptions, balls, dinners, banquets, fetes, gayeties. Never had the opera and the theatre been so crowded with fashionable audiences. Never had there been such a lavish display of jewels and fine dresses and equipages. And on the other hand, never had the deep want and suffering been so cruel, so sharp, so murderous. Never had the winds blown so chilling over the lake and through the thin shells of tenements in the neighborhood of the Settlement. Never had the pressure for food and fuel and clothes been so urgently thrust up against the people of the city in their most importunate and ghastly form. Night after night the Bishop and Dr. Bruce with their helpers went out and helped save men and women and children from the torture of physical privation. Vast quantities of food and clothing and large sums of money were donated by the churches, the charitable societies, the civic authorities and the benevolent associations. But the personal touch of the Christian disciple was very hard to secure for personal work. Where was the discipleship that was obeying the Master's command to go itself to the suffering and give itself with its gift in order to make the gift of value in time to come? The Bishop found his heart sing within him as he faced this fact more than any other. Men would give money who would not think of giving themselves. And the money they gave did not represent any real sacrifice because they did not miss it. They gave what was the easiest to give, what hurt them the least. Where did the sacrifice come in? Was this following Jesus? Was this going with Him all the way? He had been to members of his own aristocratic, splendidly wealthy congregations, and was appalled to find how few men and women of that luxurious class in the churches would really suffer any genuine inconvenience for the sake of suffering humanity. Is charity the giving of worn-out garments? Is it a ten-dollar bill given to a paid visitor or secretary of some benevolent organization in the church? Shall the man never go and give his gift himself? Shall the woman never deny herself her reception or her party or her musicale, and go and actually touch, herself, the foul, sinful sore of diseased humanity as it festers in the great metropolis? Shall charity be conveniently and easily done through some organization? Is it possible to organize the affections so that love shall work disagreeable things by proxy? All this the Bishop asked as he plunged deeper into the sin and sorrow of that bitter winter. He was bearing his cross with joy. But he burned and fought within over the shifting of personal love by the many upon the hearts of the few. And still, silently, powerfully, resistlessly, the Holy Spirit was moving through the churches, even the aristocratic, wealthy, ease-loving members who shunned the terrors of the social problem as they would shun a contagious disease. Chapter Twenty-nine THE breakfast hour at the settlement was the one hour in the day when the whole family found a little breathing space to fellowship together. It was an hour of relaxation. There was a great deal of good-natured repartee and much real wit and enjoyable fun at this hour. The Bishop told his best stories. Dr. Bruce was at his best in anecdote. This company of disciples was healthily humorous in spite of the atmosphere of sorrow that constantly surrounded them. In fact, the Bishop often said the faculty of humor was as God-given as any other and in his own case it was the only safety valve he had for the tremendous pressure put upon him. This particular morning he was reading extracts from a morning paper for the benefit of the others. Suddenly he paused and his face instantly grew stern and sad. The rest looked up and a hush fell over the table. "Shot and killed while taking a lump of coal from a car! His family was freezing and he had had no work for six months. Six children and a wife all packed into a cabin with three rooms, on the West Side. One child wrapped in rags | pangs | How many times the word 'pangs' appears in the text? | 0 |
uttered an oath at the small amount of change he found. As he uttered it, the man with the pistol savagely said, "Jerk out his watch! We might as well get all we can out of the job!" The man with the stake was on the point of laying hold of the chain where there was a sound of footsteps coming towards him. "Get behind the fence! We haven't half searched him yet! Mind you keep shut now, if you don't want--" The man with the pistol made a significant gesture with it and, with his companion, pulled and pushed the Bishop down the alley and through a ragged, broken opening in the fence. The three stood still there in the shadow until the footsteps passed. "Now, then, have you got the watch?" asked the man with the pistol. "No, the chain is caught somewhere!" and the other man swore again. "Break it then!" "No, don't break it," the Bishop said, and it was the first time he had spoken. "The chain is the gift of a very dear friend. I should be sorry to have it broken." At the sound of the Bishop's voice the man with the pistol started as if he had been suddenly shot by his own weapon. With a quick movement of his other hand he turned the Bishop's head toward's what little light was shining from the alleyway, at the same time taking a step nearer. Then, to the amazement of his companion, he said roughly: "Leave the watch alone! We've got the money. That's enough!" "Enough! Fifty cents! You don't reckon--" Before the man with the stake could say another word he was confronted with the muzzle of the pistol turned from the Bishop's head towards his own. "Leave that watch be! And put back the money too. This is the Bishop we've held up--the Bishop--do you hear?" "And what of it! The President of the United States wouldn't be too good to hold up, if--" "I say, you put the money back, or in five seconds I'll blow a hole through your head that'll let in more sense than you have to spare now!" said the other. For a second the man with the stake seemed to hesitate at this strange turn in events, as if measuring his companion's intention. Then he hastily dropped the money back into the rifled pocket. "You can take your hands down, sir." The man lowered his weapon slowly, still keeping an eye on the other man, and speaking with rough respect. The Bishop slowly brought his arms to his side, and looked earnestly at the two men. In the dim light it was difficult to distinguish features. He was evidently free to go his way now, but he stood there making no movement. "You can go on. You needn't stay any longer on our account." The man who had acted as spokesman turned and sat down on a stone. The other man stood viciously digging his stake into the ground. "That's just what I am staying for," replied the Bishop. He sat down on a board that projected from the broken fence. "You must like our company. It is hard sometimes for people to tear themselves away from us," and the man standing up laughed coarsely. "Shut up!" exclaimed the other. "We're on the road to hell, though, that's sure enough. We need better company than ourselves and the devil." "If you would only allow me to be of any help," the Bishop spoke gently, even lovingly. The man on the stone stared at the Bishop through the darkness. After a moment of silence he spoke slowly like one who had finally decided upon a course he had at first rejected. "Do you remember ever seeing me before?" "No," said the Bishop. "The light is not very good and I have really not had a good look at you." "Do you know me now?" The man suddenly took off his hat and getting up from the stone walked over to the Bishop until they were near enough to touch each other. The man's hair was coal black except one spot on the top of his head about as large as the palm of the hand, which was white. The minute the Bishop saw that, he started. The memory of fifteen years ago began to stir in him. The man helped him. "Don't you remember one day back in '81 or '82 a man came to your house and told a story about his wife and child having been burned to death in a tenement fire in New York?" "Yes, I begin to remember now." The other man seemed to be interested. He ceased digging his stake in the ground and stood still listening. "Do you remember how you took me into your own house that night and spent all next day trying to find me a job? And how when you succeeded in getting me a place in a warehouse as foreman, I promised to quit drinking because you asked me to?" "I remember it now. I hope you have kept your promise." The man laughed savagely. Then he struck his hand against the fence with such sudden passion that he drew blood. "Kept it! I was drunk inside of a week! I've been drinking ever since. But I've never forgotten you nor your prayer. Do you remember the morning after I came to your house, after breakfast you had prayers and asked me to come in and sit with the rest? That got me! But my mother used to pray! I can see her now kneeling down by my bed when I was a lad. Father came in one night and kicked her while she was kneeling there by me. But I never forgot that prayer of yours that morning. You prayed for me just as mother used to, and you didn't seem to take 'count of the fact that I was ragged and tough-looking and more than half drunk when I rang your door bell. Oh, what a life I've lived! The saloon has housed me and homed me and made hell on earth for me. But that prayer stuck to me all the time. My promise not to drink was broken into a thousand pieces inside of two Sundays, and I lost the job you found for me and landed in a police station two days later, but I never forgot you nor your prayer. I don't know what good it has done me, but I never forgot it. And I won't do any harm to you nor let any one else. So you're free to go. That's why." The Bishop did not stir. Somewhere a church clock struck one. The man had put on his hat and gone back to his seat on the stone. The Bishop was thinking hard. "How long is it since you had work?" he asked, and the man standing up answered for the other. "More'n six months since either of us did anything to tell of; unless you count 'holding up' work. I call it pretty wearing kind of a job myself, especially when we put in a night like this and don't make nothin'." "Suppose I found good jobs for both of you? Would you quit this and begin all over?" "What's the use?" the man on the stone spoke sullenly. "I've reformed a hundred times. Every time I go down deeper. The devil's begun to foreclose on me already. It's too late." "No!" said the Bishop. And never before the most entranced audience had he felt the desire for souls burn up in him so strongly. All the time he sat there during the remarkable scene he prayed, "O Lord Jesus, give me the souls of these two for Thee! I am hungry for them. Give them to me!" "No!" the Bishop repeated. "What does God want of you two men? It doesn't so much matter what I want. But He wants just what I do in this case. You two men are of infinite value to Him." And then his wonderful memory came to his aid in an appeal such as no one on earth among men could make under such circumstances. He had remembered the man's name in spite of the wonderfully busy years that lay between his coming to the house and the present moment. "Burns," he said, and he yearned over the men with an unspeakable longing for them both, "if you and your friend here will go home with me tonight I will find you both places of honorable employment. I will believe in you and trust you. You are both comparatively young men. Why should God lose you? It is a great thing to win the love of the Great Father. It is a small thing that I should love you. But if you need to feel again that there is love in the world, you will believe me when I say, my brothers, that I love you, and in the name of Him who was crucified for our sins I cannot bear to see you miss the glory of the human life. Come, be men! Make another try for it, God helping you. No one but God and you and myself need ever know anything of this tonight. He has forgiven it the minute you ask Him to. You will find that true. Come! We'll fight it out together, you two and I. It's worth fighting for, everlasting life is. It was the sinner that Christ came to help. I'll do what I can for you. O God, give me the souls of these two men!" and he broke into a prayer to God that was a continuation of his appeal to the men. His pent-up feeling had no other outlet. Before he had prayed many moments Burns was sitting with his face buried in his hands, sobbing. Where were his mother's prayers now? They were adding to the power of the Bishop's. And the other man, harder, less moved, without a previous knowledge of the Bishop, leaned back against the fence, stolid at first. But as the prayer went on, he was moved by it. What force of the Holy Spirit swept over his dulled, brutal, coarsened life, nothing but the eternal records of the recording angel can ever disclose. But the same supernatural Presence that smote Paul on the road to Damascus, and poured through Henry Maxwell's church the morning he asked disciples to follow in Jesus' steps, and had again broken irresistibly over the Nazareth Avenue congregation, now manifested Himself in this foul corner of the mighty city and over the natures of these two sinful sunken men, apparently lost to all the pleadings of conscience and memory and God. The prayer seemed to red open the crust that for years had surrounded them and shut them off from divine communication. And they themselves were thoroughly startled by it. The Bishop ceased, and at first he himself did not realize what had happened. Neither did they. Burns still sat with his head bowed between his knees. The man leaning against the fence looked at the Bishop with a face in which new emotions of awe, repentance, astonishment and a broken gleam of joy struggled for expression. The Bishop rose. "Come, my brothers. God is good. You shall stay at the Settlement tonight, and I will make good my promise as to the work." The two men followed him in silence. When they reached the Settlement it was after two o'clock. He let them in and led them to a room. At the door he paused a moment. His tall, commanding figure stood in the doorway and his pale face was illuminated with the divine glory. "God bless you, my brothers!" he said, and leaving them his benediction he went away. Chapter Twenty-eight IT WAS the afternoon of that morning when Burns was installed in his new position as assistant janitor that he was cleaning off the front steps of the Settlement, when he paused a moment and stood up to look about him. The first thing he noticed was a beer sign just across the alley. He could almost touch it with his broom from where he stood. Over the street immediately opposite were two large saloons, and a little farther down were three more. Suddenly the door of the nearest saloon opened and a man came out. At the same time two more went in. A strong odor of beer floated up to Burns as he stood on the steps. He clutched his broom handle tightly and began to sweep again. He had one foot on the porch and another on the steps just below. He took another step down, still sweeping. The sweat stood on his forehead although the day was frosty and the air chill. The saloon door opened again and three or four men came out. A child went in with a pail, and came out a moment later with a quart of beer. The child went by on the sidewalk just below him, and the odor of the beer came up to him. He took another step down, still sweeping desperately. His fingers were purple as he clutched the handle of the broom. Then suddenly he pulled himself up one step and swept over the spot he had just cleaned. He then dragged himself by a tremendous effort back to the floor of the porch and went over into the corner of it farthest from the saloon and began to sweep there. "O God!" he cried, "if the Bishop would only come back!" The Bishop had gone out with Dr. Bruce somewhere, and there was no one about that he knew. He swept in the corner for two or three minutes. His face was drawn with the agony of his conflict. Gradually he edged out again towards the steps and began to go down them. He looked towards the sidewalk and saw that he had left one step unswept. The sight seemed to give him a reasonable excuse for going down there to finish his sweeping. He was on the sidewalk now, sweeping the last step, with his face towards the Settlement and his back turned partly on the saloon across the alley. He swept the step a dozen times. The sweat rolled over his face and dropped down at his feet. By degrees he felt that he was drawn over towards that end of the step nearest the saloon. He could smell the beer and rum now as the fumes rose around him. It was like the infernal sulphur of the lowest hell, and yet it dragged him as by a giant's hand nearer its source. He was down in the middle of the sidewalk now, still sweeping. He cleared the space in front of the Settlement and even went out into the gutter and swept that. He took off his hat and rubbed his sleeve over his face. His lips were pallid and his teeth chattered. He trembled all over like a palsied man and staggered back and forth as if he was already drunk. His soul shook within him. He had crossed over the little piece of stone flagging that measured the width of the alley, and now he stood in front of the saloon, looking at the sign, and staring into the window at the pile of whiskey and beer bottles arranged in a great pyramid inside. He moistened his lips with his tongue and took a step forward, looking around him stealthily. The door suddenly opened again and someone came out. Again the hot, penetrating smell of liquor swept out into the cold air, and he took another step towards the saloon door which had shut behind the customer. As he laid his fingers on the door handle, a tall figure came around the corner. It was the Bishop. He seized Burns by the arm and dragged him back upon the sidewalk. The frenzied man, now mad for a drink, shrieked out a curse and struck at his friend savagely. It is doubtful if he really knew at first who was snatching him away from his ruin. The blow fell upon the Bishop's face and cut a gash in his cheek. He never uttered a word. But over his face a look of majestic sorrow swept. He picked Burns up as if he had been a child and actually carried him up the steps and into the house. He put him down in the hall and then shut the door and put his back against it. Burns fell on his knees sobbing and praying. The Bishop stood there panting with his exertion, although Burns was a slightly-built man and had not been a great weight for a man of his strength to carry. He was moved with unspeakable pity. "Pray, Burns--pray as you never prayed before! Nothing else will save you!" "O God! Pray with me. Save me! Oh, save me from my hell!" cried Burns. And, the Bishop knelt by him in the hall and prayed as only he could pray. After that they rose and Burns went to his room. He came out of it that evening like a humble child. And the Bishop went his way older from that experience, bearing on his body the marks of the Lord Jesus. Truly he was learning something of what it means to walk in His steps. But the saloon! It stood there, and all the others lined the street like so many traps set for Burns. How long would the man be able to resist the smell of the damnable stuff? The Bishop went out on the porch. The air of the whole city seemed to be impregnated with the odor of beer. "How long, O Lord, how long?" he prayed. Dr. Bruce came out, and the two friends talked about Burns and his temptation. "Did you ever make any inquiries about the ownership of this property adjoining us?" the Bishop asked. "No, I haven't taken time for it. I will now if you think it would be worth while. But what can we do, Edward, against the saloon in this great city? It is as firmly established as the churches or politics. What power can ever remove it?" "God will do it in time, as He has removed slavery," was the grave reply. "Meanwhile I think we have a right to know who controls this saloon so near the Settlement." "I'll find out," said Dr. Bruce. Two days later he walked into the business office of one of the members of Nazareth Avenue Church and asked to see him a few moments. He was cordially received by his old parishioner, who welcomed him into his room and urged him to take all the time he wanted. "I called to see you about that property next the Settlement where the Bishop and myself now are, you know. I am going to speak plainly, because life is too short and too serious for us both to have any foolish hesitation about this matter. Clayton, do you think it is right to rent that property for a saloon?" Dr. Bruce's question was as direct and uncompromising as he had meant it to be. The effect of it on his old parishioner was instantaneous. The hot blood mounted to the face of the man who sat there beneath a picture of business activity in a great city. Then he grew pale, dropped his head on his hands, and when he raised it again Dr. Bruce was amazed to see a tear roll over his face. "Doctor, did you know that I took the pledge that morning with the others?" "Yes, I remember." "But you never knew how I have been tormented over my failure to keep it in this instance. That saloon property has been the temptation of the devil to me. It is the best paying investment at present that I have. And yet it was only a minute before you came in here that I was in an agony of remorse to think how I was letting a little earthly gain tempt me into a denial of the very Christ I had promised to follow. I knew well enough that He would never rent property for such a purpose. There is no need, Dr. Bruce, for you to say a word more." Clayton held out his hand and Dr. Bruce grasped it and shook it hard. After a little he went away. But it was a long time afterwards that he learned all the truth about the struggle that Clayton had known. It was only a part of the history that belonged to Nazareth Avenue Church since that memorable morning when the Holy Spirit sanctioned the Christ-like pledge. Not even the Bishop and Dr. Bruce, moving as they now did in the very presence itself of divine impulses, knew yet that over the whole sinful city the Spirit was brooding with mighty eagerness, waiting for the disciples to arise to the call of sacrifice and suffering, touching hearts long dull and cold, making business men and money-makers uneasy in their absorption by the one great struggle for more wealth, and stirring through the church as never in all the city's history the church had been moved. The Bishop and Dr. Bruce had already seen some wonderful things in their brief life at the Settlement. They were to see far greater soon, more astonishing revelations of the divine power than they had supposed possible in this age of the world. Within a month the saloon next the Settlement was closed. The saloon-keeper's lease had expired, and Clayton not only closed the property to the whiskey men, but offered the building to the Bishop and Dr. Bruce to use for the Settlement work, which had now grown so large that the building they had first rented was not sufficient for the different industries that were planned. One of the most important of these was the pure-food department suggested by Felicia. It was not a month after Clayton turned the saloon property over to the Settlement that Felicia found herself installed in the very room where souls had been lost, as head of the department not only of cooking but of a course of housekeeping for girls who wished to go out to service. She was now a resident of the Settlement, and found a home with Mrs. Bruce and the other young women from the city who were residents. Martha, the violinist, remained at the place where the Bishop had first discovered the two girls, and came over to the Settlement certain evenings to give lessons in music. "Felicia, tell us your plan in full now," said the Bishop one evening when, in a rare interval of rest from the great pressure of work, he was with Dr. Bruce, and Felicia had come in from the other building. "Well, I have long thought of the hired girl problem," said Felicia with an air of wisdom that made Mrs. Bruce smile as she looked at the enthusiastic, vital beauty of this young girl, transformed into a new creature by the promise she had made to live the Christ-like life. "And I have reached certain conclusions in regard to it that you men are not yet able to fathom, but Mrs. Bruce will understand me." "We acknowledge our infancy, Felicia. Go on," said the Bishop humbly. "Then this is what I propose to do. The old saloon building is large enough to arrange into a suite of rooms that will represent an ordinary house. My plan is to have it so arranged, and then teach housekeeping and cooking to girls who will afterwards go out to service. The course will be six months' long; in that time I will teach plain cooking, neatness, quickness, and a love of good work." "Hold on, Felicia!" the Bishop interrupted, "this is not an age of miracles!" "Then we will make it one," replied Felicia. "I know this seems like an impossibility, but I want to try it. I know a score of girls already who will take the course, and if we can once establish something like an esprit de corps among the girls themselves, I am sure it will be of great value to them. I know already that the pure food is working a revolution in many families." "Felicia, if you can accomplish half what you propose it will bless this community," said Mrs. Bruce. "I don't see how you can do it, but I say, God bless you, as you try." "So say we all!" cried Dr. Bruce and the Bishop, and Felicia plunged into the working out of her plan with the enthusiasm of her discipleship which every day grew more and more practical and serviceable. It must be said here that Felicia's plan succeeded beyond all expectations. She developed wonderful powers of persuasion, and taught her girls with astonishing rapidity to do all sorts of housework. In time, the graduates of Felicia's cooking school came to be prized by housekeepers all over the city. But that is anticipating our story. The history of the Settlement has never yet been written. When it is Felicia's part will be found of very great importance. The depth of winter found Chicago presenting, as every great city of the world presents to the eyes of Christendom the marked contrast between riches and poverty, between culture, refinement, luxury, ease, and ignorance, depravity, destitution and the bitter struggle for bread. It was a hard winter but a gay winter. Never had there been such a succession of parties, receptions, balls, dinners, banquets, fetes, gayeties. Never had the opera and the theatre been so crowded with fashionable audiences. Never had there been such a lavish display of jewels and fine dresses and equipages. And on the other hand, never had the deep want and suffering been so cruel, so sharp, so murderous. Never had the winds blown so chilling over the lake and through the thin shells of tenements in the neighborhood of the Settlement. Never had the pressure for food and fuel and clothes been so urgently thrust up against the people of the city in their most importunate and ghastly form. Night after night the Bishop and Dr. Bruce with their helpers went out and helped save men and women and children from the torture of physical privation. Vast quantities of food and clothing and large sums of money were donated by the churches, the charitable societies, the civic authorities and the benevolent associations. But the personal touch of the Christian disciple was very hard to secure for personal work. Where was the discipleship that was obeying the Master's command to go itself to the suffering and give itself with its gift in order to make the gift of value in time to come? The Bishop found his heart sing within him as he faced this fact more than any other. Men would give money who would not think of giving themselves. And the money they gave did not represent any real sacrifice because they did not miss it. They gave what was the easiest to give, what hurt them the least. Where did the sacrifice come in? Was this following Jesus? Was this going with Him all the way? He had been to members of his own aristocratic, splendidly wealthy congregations, and was appalled to find how few men and women of that luxurious class in the churches would really suffer any genuine inconvenience for the sake of suffering humanity. Is charity the giving of worn-out garments? Is it a ten-dollar bill given to a paid visitor or secretary of some benevolent organization in the church? Shall the man never go and give his gift himself? Shall the woman never deny herself her reception or her party or her musicale, and go and actually touch, herself, the foul, sinful sore of diseased humanity as it festers in the great metropolis? Shall charity be conveniently and easily done through some organization? Is it possible to organize the affections so that love shall work disagreeable things by proxy? All this the Bishop asked as he plunged deeper into the sin and sorrow of that bitter winter. He was bearing his cross with joy. But he burned and fought within over the shifting of personal love by the many upon the hearts of the few. And still, silently, powerfully, resistlessly, the Holy Spirit was moving through the churches, even the aristocratic, wealthy, ease-loving members who shunned the terrors of the social problem as they would shun a contagious disease. Chapter Twenty-nine THE breakfast hour at the settlement was the one hour in the day when the whole family found a little breathing space to fellowship together. It was an hour of relaxation. There was a great deal of good-natured repartee and much real wit and enjoyable fun at this hour. The Bishop told his best stories. Dr. Bruce was at his best in anecdote. This company of disciples was healthily humorous in spite of the atmosphere of sorrow that constantly surrounded them. In fact, the Bishop often said the faculty of humor was as God-given as any other and in his own case it was the only safety valve he had for the tremendous pressure put upon him. This particular morning he was reading extracts from a morning paper for the benefit of the others. Suddenly he paused and his face instantly grew stern and sad. The rest looked up and a hush fell over the table. "Shot and killed while taking a lump of coal from a car! His family was freezing and he had had no work for six months. Six children and a wife all packed into a cabin with three rooms, on the West Side. One child wrapped in rags | finish | How many times the word 'finish' appears in the text? | 1 |
uttered an oath at the small amount of change he found. As he uttered it, the man with the pistol savagely said, "Jerk out his watch! We might as well get all we can out of the job!" The man with the stake was on the point of laying hold of the chain where there was a sound of footsteps coming towards him. "Get behind the fence! We haven't half searched him yet! Mind you keep shut now, if you don't want--" The man with the pistol made a significant gesture with it and, with his companion, pulled and pushed the Bishop down the alley and through a ragged, broken opening in the fence. The three stood still there in the shadow until the footsteps passed. "Now, then, have you got the watch?" asked the man with the pistol. "No, the chain is caught somewhere!" and the other man swore again. "Break it then!" "No, don't break it," the Bishop said, and it was the first time he had spoken. "The chain is the gift of a very dear friend. I should be sorry to have it broken." At the sound of the Bishop's voice the man with the pistol started as if he had been suddenly shot by his own weapon. With a quick movement of his other hand he turned the Bishop's head toward's what little light was shining from the alleyway, at the same time taking a step nearer. Then, to the amazement of his companion, he said roughly: "Leave the watch alone! We've got the money. That's enough!" "Enough! Fifty cents! You don't reckon--" Before the man with the stake could say another word he was confronted with the muzzle of the pistol turned from the Bishop's head towards his own. "Leave that watch be! And put back the money too. This is the Bishop we've held up--the Bishop--do you hear?" "And what of it! The President of the United States wouldn't be too good to hold up, if--" "I say, you put the money back, or in five seconds I'll blow a hole through your head that'll let in more sense than you have to spare now!" said the other. For a second the man with the stake seemed to hesitate at this strange turn in events, as if measuring his companion's intention. Then he hastily dropped the money back into the rifled pocket. "You can take your hands down, sir." The man lowered his weapon slowly, still keeping an eye on the other man, and speaking with rough respect. The Bishop slowly brought his arms to his side, and looked earnestly at the two men. In the dim light it was difficult to distinguish features. He was evidently free to go his way now, but he stood there making no movement. "You can go on. You needn't stay any longer on our account." The man who had acted as spokesman turned and sat down on a stone. The other man stood viciously digging his stake into the ground. "That's just what I am staying for," replied the Bishop. He sat down on a board that projected from the broken fence. "You must like our company. It is hard sometimes for people to tear themselves away from us," and the man standing up laughed coarsely. "Shut up!" exclaimed the other. "We're on the road to hell, though, that's sure enough. We need better company than ourselves and the devil." "If you would only allow me to be of any help," the Bishop spoke gently, even lovingly. The man on the stone stared at the Bishop through the darkness. After a moment of silence he spoke slowly like one who had finally decided upon a course he had at first rejected. "Do you remember ever seeing me before?" "No," said the Bishop. "The light is not very good and I have really not had a good look at you." "Do you know me now?" The man suddenly took off his hat and getting up from the stone walked over to the Bishop until they were near enough to touch each other. The man's hair was coal black except one spot on the top of his head about as large as the palm of the hand, which was white. The minute the Bishop saw that, he started. The memory of fifteen years ago began to stir in him. The man helped him. "Don't you remember one day back in '81 or '82 a man came to your house and told a story about his wife and child having been burned to death in a tenement fire in New York?" "Yes, I begin to remember now." The other man seemed to be interested. He ceased digging his stake in the ground and stood still listening. "Do you remember how you took me into your own house that night and spent all next day trying to find me a job? And how when you succeeded in getting me a place in a warehouse as foreman, I promised to quit drinking because you asked me to?" "I remember it now. I hope you have kept your promise." The man laughed savagely. Then he struck his hand against the fence with such sudden passion that he drew blood. "Kept it! I was drunk inside of a week! I've been drinking ever since. But I've never forgotten you nor your prayer. Do you remember the morning after I came to your house, after breakfast you had prayers and asked me to come in and sit with the rest? That got me! But my mother used to pray! I can see her now kneeling down by my bed when I was a lad. Father came in one night and kicked her while she was kneeling there by me. But I never forgot that prayer of yours that morning. You prayed for me just as mother used to, and you didn't seem to take 'count of the fact that I was ragged and tough-looking and more than half drunk when I rang your door bell. Oh, what a life I've lived! The saloon has housed me and homed me and made hell on earth for me. But that prayer stuck to me all the time. My promise not to drink was broken into a thousand pieces inside of two Sundays, and I lost the job you found for me and landed in a police station two days later, but I never forgot you nor your prayer. I don't know what good it has done me, but I never forgot it. And I won't do any harm to you nor let any one else. So you're free to go. That's why." The Bishop did not stir. Somewhere a church clock struck one. The man had put on his hat and gone back to his seat on the stone. The Bishop was thinking hard. "How long is it since you had work?" he asked, and the man standing up answered for the other. "More'n six months since either of us did anything to tell of; unless you count 'holding up' work. I call it pretty wearing kind of a job myself, especially when we put in a night like this and don't make nothin'." "Suppose I found good jobs for both of you? Would you quit this and begin all over?" "What's the use?" the man on the stone spoke sullenly. "I've reformed a hundred times. Every time I go down deeper. The devil's begun to foreclose on me already. It's too late." "No!" said the Bishop. And never before the most entranced audience had he felt the desire for souls burn up in him so strongly. All the time he sat there during the remarkable scene he prayed, "O Lord Jesus, give me the souls of these two for Thee! I am hungry for them. Give them to me!" "No!" the Bishop repeated. "What does God want of you two men? It doesn't so much matter what I want. But He wants just what I do in this case. You two men are of infinite value to Him." And then his wonderful memory came to his aid in an appeal such as no one on earth among men could make under such circumstances. He had remembered the man's name in spite of the wonderfully busy years that lay between his coming to the house and the present moment. "Burns," he said, and he yearned over the men with an unspeakable longing for them both, "if you and your friend here will go home with me tonight I will find you both places of honorable employment. I will believe in you and trust you. You are both comparatively young men. Why should God lose you? It is a great thing to win the love of the Great Father. It is a small thing that I should love you. But if you need to feel again that there is love in the world, you will believe me when I say, my brothers, that I love you, and in the name of Him who was crucified for our sins I cannot bear to see you miss the glory of the human life. Come, be men! Make another try for it, God helping you. No one but God and you and myself need ever know anything of this tonight. He has forgiven it the minute you ask Him to. You will find that true. Come! We'll fight it out together, you two and I. It's worth fighting for, everlasting life is. It was the sinner that Christ came to help. I'll do what I can for you. O God, give me the souls of these two men!" and he broke into a prayer to God that was a continuation of his appeal to the men. His pent-up feeling had no other outlet. Before he had prayed many moments Burns was sitting with his face buried in his hands, sobbing. Where were his mother's prayers now? They were adding to the power of the Bishop's. And the other man, harder, less moved, without a previous knowledge of the Bishop, leaned back against the fence, stolid at first. But as the prayer went on, he was moved by it. What force of the Holy Spirit swept over his dulled, brutal, coarsened life, nothing but the eternal records of the recording angel can ever disclose. But the same supernatural Presence that smote Paul on the road to Damascus, and poured through Henry Maxwell's church the morning he asked disciples to follow in Jesus' steps, and had again broken irresistibly over the Nazareth Avenue congregation, now manifested Himself in this foul corner of the mighty city and over the natures of these two sinful sunken men, apparently lost to all the pleadings of conscience and memory and God. The prayer seemed to red open the crust that for years had surrounded them and shut them off from divine communication. And they themselves were thoroughly startled by it. The Bishop ceased, and at first he himself did not realize what had happened. Neither did they. Burns still sat with his head bowed between his knees. The man leaning against the fence looked at the Bishop with a face in which new emotions of awe, repentance, astonishment and a broken gleam of joy struggled for expression. The Bishop rose. "Come, my brothers. God is good. You shall stay at the Settlement tonight, and I will make good my promise as to the work." The two men followed him in silence. When they reached the Settlement it was after two o'clock. He let them in and led them to a room. At the door he paused a moment. His tall, commanding figure stood in the doorway and his pale face was illuminated with the divine glory. "God bless you, my brothers!" he said, and leaving them his benediction he went away. Chapter Twenty-eight IT WAS the afternoon of that morning when Burns was installed in his new position as assistant janitor that he was cleaning off the front steps of the Settlement, when he paused a moment and stood up to look about him. The first thing he noticed was a beer sign just across the alley. He could almost touch it with his broom from where he stood. Over the street immediately opposite were two large saloons, and a little farther down were three more. Suddenly the door of the nearest saloon opened and a man came out. At the same time two more went in. A strong odor of beer floated up to Burns as he stood on the steps. He clutched his broom handle tightly and began to sweep again. He had one foot on the porch and another on the steps just below. He took another step down, still sweeping. The sweat stood on his forehead although the day was frosty and the air chill. The saloon door opened again and three or four men came out. A child went in with a pail, and came out a moment later with a quart of beer. The child went by on the sidewalk just below him, and the odor of the beer came up to him. He took another step down, still sweeping desperately. His fingers were purple as he clutched the handle of the broom. Then suddenly he pulled himself up one step and swept over the spot he had just cleaned. He then dragged himself by a tremendous effort back to the floor of the porch and went over into the corner of it farthest from the saloon and began to sweep there. "O God!" he cried, "if the Bishop would only come back!" The Bishop had gone out with Dr. Bruce somewhere, and there was no one about that he knew. He swept in the corner for two or three minutes. His face was drawn with the agony of his conflict. Gradually he edged out again towards the steps and began to go down them. He looked towards the sidewalk and saw that he had left one step unswept. The sight seemed to give him a reasonable excuse for going down there to finish his sweeping. He was on the sidewalk now, sweeping the last step, with his face towards the Settlement and his back turned partly on the saloon across the alley. He swept the step a dozen times. The sweat rolled over his face and dropped down at his feet. By degrees he felt that he was drawn over towards that end of the step nearest the saloon. He could smell the beer and rum now as the fumes rose around him. It was like the infernal sulphur of the lowest hell, and yet it dragged him as by a giant's hand nearer its source. He was down in the middle of the sidewalk now, still sweeping. He cleared the space in front of the Settlement and even went out into the gutter and swept that. He took off his hat and rubbed his sleeve over his face. His lips were pallid and his teeth chattered. He trembled all over like a palsied man and staggered back and forth as if he was already drunk. His soul shook within him. He had crossed over the little piece of stone flagging that measured the width of the alley, and now he stood in front of the saloon, looking at the sign, and staring into the window at the pile of whiskey and beer bottles arranged in a great pyramid inside. He moistened his lips with his tongue and took a step forward, looking around him stealthily. The door suddenly opened again and someone came out. Again the hot, penetrating smell of liquor swept out into the cold air, and he took another step towards the saloon door which had shut behind the customer. As he laid his fingers on the door handle, a tall figure came around the corner. It was the Bishop. He seized Burns by the arm and dragged him back upon the sidewalk. The frenzied man, now mad for a drink, shrieked out a curse and struck at his friend savagely. It is doubtful if he really knew at first who was snatching him away from his ruin. The blow fell upon the Bishop's face and cut a gash in his cheek. He never uttered a word. But over his face a look of majestic sorrow swept. He picked Burns up as if he had been a child and actually carried him up the steps and into the house. He put him down in the hall and then shut the door and put his back against it. Burns fell on his knees sobbing and praying. The Bishop stood there panting with his exertion, although Burns was a slightly-built man and had not been a great weight for a man of his strength to carry. He was moved with unspeakable pity. "Pray, Burns--pray as you never prayed before! Nothing else will save you!" "O God! Pray with me. Save me! Oh, save me from my hell!" cried Burns. And, the Bishop knelt by him in the hall and prayed as only he could pray. After that they rose and Burns went to his room. He came out of it that evening like a humble child. And the Bishop went his way older from that experience, bearing on his body the marks of the Lord Jesus. Truly he was learning something of what it means to walk in His steps. But the saloon! It stood there, and all the others lined the street like so many traps set for Burns. How long would the man be able to resist the smell of the damnable stuff? The Bishop went out on the porch. The air of the whole city seemed to be impregnated with the odor of beer. "How long, O Lord, how long?" he prayed. Dr. Bruce came out, and the two friends talked about Burns and his temptation. "Did you ever make any inquiries about the ownership of this property adjoining us?" the Bishop asked. "No, I haven't taken time for it. I will now if you think it would be worth while. But what can we do, Edward, against the saloon in this great city? It is as firmly established as the churches or politics. What power can ever remove it?" "God will do it in time, as He has removed slavery," was the grave reply. "Meanwhile I think we have a right to know who controls this saloon so near the Settlement." "I'll find out," said Dr. Bruce. Two days later he walked into the business office of one of the members of Nazareth Avenue Church and asked to see him a few moments. He was cordially received by his old parishioner, who welcomed him into his room and urged him to take all the time he wanted. "I called to see you about that property next the Settlement where the Bishop and myself now are, you know. I am going to speak plainly, because life is too short and too serious for us both to have any foolish hesitation about this matter. Clayton, do you think it is right to rent that property for a saloon?" Dr. Bruce's question was as direct and uncompromising as he had meant it to be. The effect of it on his old parishioner was instantaneous. The hot blood mounted to the face of the man who sat there beneath a picture of business activity in a great city. Then he grew pale, dropped his head on his hands, and when he raised it again Dr. Bruce was amazed to see a tear roll over his face. "Doctor, did you know that I took the pledge that morning with the others?" "Yes, I remember." "But you never knew how I have been tormented over my failure to keep it in this instance. That saloon property has been the temptation of the devil to me. It is the best paying investment at present that I have. And yet it was only a minute before you came in here that I was in an agony of remorse to think how I was letting a little earthly gain tempt me into a denial of the very Christ I had promised to follow. I knew well enough that He would never rent property for such a purpose. There is no need, Dr. Bruce, for you to say a word more." Clayton held out his hand and Dr. Bruce grasped it and shook it hard. After a little he went away. But it was a long time afterwards that he learned all the truth about the struggle that Clayton had known. It was only a part of the history that belonged to Nazareth Avenue Church since that memorable morning when the Holy Spirit sanctioned the Christ-like pledge. Not even the Bishop and Dr. Bruce, moving as they now did in the very presence itself of divine impulses, knew yet that over the whole sinful city the Spirit was brooding with mighty eagerness, waiting for the disciples to arise to the call of sacrifice and suffering, touching hearts long dull and cold, making business men and money-makers uneasy in their absorption by the one great struggle for more wealth, and stirring through the church as never in all the city's history the church had been moved. The Bishop and Dr. Bruce had already seen some wonderful things in their brief life at the Settlement. They were to see far greater soon, more astonishing revelations of the divine power than they had supposed possible in this age of the world. Within a month the saloon next the Settlement was closed. The saloon-keeper's lease had expired, and Clayton not only closed the property to the whiskey men, but offered the building to the Bishop and Dr. Bruce to use for the Settlement work, which had now grown so large that the building they had first rented was not sufficient for the different industries that were planned. One of the most important of these was the pure-food department suggested by Felicia. It was not a month after Clayton turned the saloon property over to the Settlement that Felicia found herself installed in the very room where souls had been lost, as head of the department not only of cooking but of a course of housekeeping for girls who wished to go out to service. She was now a resident of the Settlement, and found a home with Mrs. Bruce and the other young women from the city who were residents. Martha, the violinist, remained at the place where the Bishop had first discovered the two girls, and came over to the Settlement certain evenings to give lessons in music. "Felicia, tell us your plan in full now," said the Bishop one evening when, in a rare interval of rest from the great pressure of work, he was with Dr. Bruce, and Felicia had come in from the other building. "Well, I have long thought of the hired girl problem," said Felicia with an air of wisdom that made Mrs. Bruce smile as she looked at the enthusiastic, vital beauty of this young girl, transformed into a new creature by the promise she had made to live the Christ-like life. "And I have reached certain conclusions in regard to it that you men are not yet able to fathom, but Mrs. Bruce will understand me." "We acknowledge our infancy, Felicia. Go on," said the Bishop humbly. "Then this is what I propose to do. The old saloon building is large enough to arrange into a suite of rooms that will represent an ordinary house. My plan is to have it so arranged, and then teach housekeeping and cooking to girls who will afterwards go out to service. The course will be six months' long; in that time I will teach plain cooking, neatness, quickness, and a love of good work." "Hold on, Felicia!" the Bishop interrupted, "this is not an age of miracles!" "Then we will make it one," replied Felicia. "I know this seems like an impossibility, but I want to try it. I know a score of girls already who will take the course, and if we can once establish something like an esprit de corps among the girls themselves, I am sure it will be of great value to them. I know already that the pure food is working a revolution in many families." "Felicia, if you can accomplish half what you propose it will bless this community," said Mrs. Bruce. "I don't see how you can do it, but I say, God bless you, as you try." "So say we all!" cried Dr. Bruce and the Bishop, and Felicia plunged into the working out of her plan with the enthusiasm of her discipleship which every day grew more and more practical and serviceable. It must be said here that Felicia's plan succeeded beyond all expectations. She developed wonderful powers of persuasion, and taught her girls with astonishing rapidity to do all sorts of housework. In time, the graduates of Felicia's cooking school came to be prized by housekeepers all over the city. But that is anticipating our story. The history of the Settlement has never yet been written. When it is Felicia's part will be found of very great importance. The depth of winter found Chicago presenting, as every great city of the world presents to the eyes of Christendom the marked contrast between riches and poverty, between culture, refinement, luxury, ease, and ignorance, depravity, destitution and the bitter struggle for bread. It was a hard winter but a gay winter. Never had there been such a succession of parties, receptions, balls, dinners, banquets, fetes, gayeties. Never had the opera and the theatre been so crowded with fashionable audiences. Never had there been such a lavish display of jewels and fine dresses and equipages. And on the other hand, never had the deep want and suffering been so cruel, so sharp, so murderous. Never had the winds blown so chilling over the lake and through the thin shells of tenements in the neighborhood of the Settlement. Never had the pressure for food and fuel and clothes been so urgently thrust up against the people of the city in their most importunate and ghastly form. Night after night the Bishop and Dr. Bruce with their helpers went out and helped save men and women and children from the torture of physical privation. Vast quantities of food and clothing and large sums of money were donated by the churches, the charitable societies, the civic authorities and the benevolent associations. But the personal touch of the Christian disciple was very hard to secure for personal work. Where was the discipleship that was obeying the Master's command to go itself to the suffering and give itself with its gift in order to make the gift of value in time to come? The Bishop found his heart sing within him as he faced this fact more than any other. Men would give money who would not think of giving themselves. And the money they gave did not represent any real sacrifice because they did not miss it. They gave what was the easiest to give, what hurt them the least. Where did the sacrifice come in? Was this following Jesus? Was this going with Him all the way? He had been to members of his own aristocratic, splendidly wealthy congregations, and was appalled to find how few men and women of that luxurious class in the churches would really suffer any genuine inconvenience for the sake of suffering humanity. Is charity the giving of worn-out garments? Is it a ten-dollar bill given to a paid visitor or secretary of some benevolent organization in the church? Shall the man never go and give his gift himself? Shall the woman never deny herself her reception or her party or her musicale, and go and actually touch, herself, the foul, sinful sore of diseased humanity as it festers in the great metropolis? Shall charity be conveniently and easily done through some organization? Is it possible to organize the affections so that love shall work disagreeable things by proxy? All this the Bishop asked as he plunged deeper into the sin and sorrow of that bitter winter. He was bearing his cross with joy. But he burned and fought within over the shifting of personal love by the many upon the hearts of the few. And still, silently, powerfully, resistlessly, the Holy Spirit was moving through the churches, even the aristocratic, wealthy, ease-loving members who shunned the terrors of the social problem as they would shun a contagious disease. Chapter Twenty-nine THE breakfast hour at the settlement was the one hour in the day when the whole family found a little breathing space to fellowship together. It was an hour of relaxation. There was a great deal of good-natured repartee and much real wit and enjoyable fun at this hour. The Bishop told his best stories. Dr. Bruce was at his best in anecdote. This company of disciples was healthily humorous in spite of the atmosphere of sorrow that constantly surrounded them. In fact, the Bishop often said the faculty of humor was as God-given as any other and in his own case it was the only safety valve he had for the tremendous pressure put upon him. This particular morning he was reading extracts from a morning paper for the benefit of the others. Suddenly he paused and his face instantly grew stern and sad. The rest looked up and a hush fell over the table. "Shot and killed while taking a lump of coal from a car! His family was freezing and he had had no work for six months. Six children and a wife all packed into a cabin with three rooms, on the West Side. One child wrapped in rags | friend | How many times the word 'friend' appears in the text? | 3 |
uttered an oath at the small amount of change he found. As he uttered it, the man with the pistol savagely said, "Jerk out his watch! We might as well get all we can out of the job!" The man with the stake was on the point of laying hold of the chain where there was a sound of footsteps coming towards him. "Get behind the fence! We haven't half searched him yet! Mind you keep shut now, if you don't want--" The man with the pistol made a significant gesture with it and, with his companion, pulled and pushed the Bishop down the alley and through a ragged, broken opening in the fence. The three stood still there in the shadow until the footsteps passed. "Now, then, have you got the watch?" asked the man with the pistol. "No, the chain is caught somewhere!" and the other man swore again. "Break it then!" "No, don't break it," the Bishop said, and it was the first time he had spoken. "The chain is the gift of a very dear friend. I should be sorry to have it broken." At the sound of the Bishop's voice the man with the pistol started as if he had been suddenly shot by his own weapon. With a quick movement of his other hand he turned the Bishop's head toward's what little light was shining from the alleyway, at the same time taking a step nearer. Then, to the amazement of his companion, he said roughly: "Leave the watch alone! We've got the money. That's enough!" "Enough! Fifty cents! You don't reckon--" Before the man with the stake could say another word he was confronted with the muzzle of the pistol turned from the Bishop's head towards his own. "Leave that watch be! And put back the money too. This is the Bishop we've held up--the Bishop--do you hear?" "And what of it! The President of the United States wouldn't be too good to hold up, if--" "I say, you put the money back, or in five seconds I'll blow a hole through your head that'll let in more sense than you have to spare now!" said the other. For a second the man with the stake seemed to hesitate at this strange turn in events, as if measuring his companion's intention. Then he hastily dropped the money back into the rifled pocket. "You can take your hands down, sir." The man lowered his weapon slowly, still keeping an eye on the other man, and speaking with rough respect. The Bishop slowly brought his arms to his side, and looked earnestly at the two men. In the dim light it was difficult to distinguish features. He was evidently free to go his way now, but he stood there making no movement. "You can go on. You needn't stay any longer on our account." The man who had acted as spokesman turned and sat down on a stone. The other man stood viciously digging his stake into the ground. "That's just what I am staying for," replied the Bishop. He sat down on a board that projected from the broken fence. "You must like our company. It is hard sometimes for people to tear themselves away from us," and the man standing up laughed coarsely. "Shut up!" exclaimed the other. "We're on the road to hell, though, that's sure enough. We need better company than ourselves and the devil." "If you would only allow me to be of any help," the Bishop spoke gently, even lovingly. The man on the stone stared at the Bishop through the darkness. After a moment of silence he spoke slowly like one who had finally decided upon a course he had at first rejected. "Do you remember ever seeing me before?" "No," said the Bishop. "The light is not very good and I have really not had a good look at you." "Do you know me now?" The man suddenly took off his hat and getting up from the stone walked over to the Bishop until they were near enough to touch each other. The man's hair was coal black except one spot on the top of his head about as large as the palm of the hand, which was white. The minute the Bishop saw that, he started. The memory of fifteen years ago began to stir in him. The man helped him. "Don't you remember one day back in '81 or '82 a man came to your house and told a story about his wife and child having been burned to death in a tenement fire in New York?" "Yes, I begin to remember now." The other man seemed to be interested. He ceased digging his stake in the ground and stood still listening. "Do you remember how you took me into your own house that night and spent all next day trying to find me a job? And how when you succeeded in getting me a place in a warehouse as foreman, I promised to quit drinking because you asked me to?" "I remember it now. I hope you have kept your promise." The man laughed savagely. Then he struck his hand against the fence with such sudden passion that he drew blood. "Kept it! I was drunk inside of a week! I've been drinking ever since. But I've never forgotten you nor your prayer. Do you remember the morning after I came to your house, after breakfast you had prayers and asked me to come in and sit with the rest? That got me! But my mother used to pray! I can see her now kneeling down by my bed when I was a lad. Father came in one night and kicked her while she was kneeling there by me. But I never forgot that prayer of yours that morning. You prayed for me just as mother used to, and you didn't seem to take 'count of the fact that I was ragged and tough-looking and more than half drunk when I rang your door bell. Oh, what a life I've lived! The saloon has housed me and homed me and made hell on earth for me. But that prayer stuck to me all the time. My promise not to drink was broken into a thousand pieces inside of two Sundays, and I lost the job you found for me and landed in a police station two days later, but I never forgot you nor your prayer. I don't know what good it has done me, but I never forgot it. And I won't do any harm to you nor let any one else. So you're free to go. That's why." The Bishop did not stir. Somewhere a church clock struck one. The man had put on his hat and gone back to his seat on the stone. The Bishop was thinking hard. "How long is it since you had work?" he asked, and the man standing up answered for the other. "More'n six months since either of us did anything to tell of; unless you count 'holding up' work. I call it pretty wearing kind of a job myself, especially when we put in a night like this and don't make nothin'." "Suppose I found good jobs for both of you? Would you quit this and begin all over?" "What's the use?" the man on the stone spoke sullenly. "I've reformed a hundred times. Every time I go down deeper. The devil's begun to foreclose on me already. It's too late." "No!" said the Bishop. And never before the most entranced audience had he felt the desire for souls burn up in him so strongly. All the time he sat there during the remarkable scene he prayed, "O Lord Jesus, give me the souls of these two for Thee! I am hungry for them. Give them to me!" "No!" the Bishop repeated. "What does God want of you two men? It doesn't so much matter what I want. But He wants just what I do in this case. You two men are of infinite value to Him." And then his wonderful memory came to his aid in an appeal such as no one on earth among men could make under such circumstances. He had remembered the man's name in spite of the wonderfully busy years that lay between his coming to the house and the present moment. "Burns," he said, and he yearned over the men with an unspeakable longing for them both, "if you and your friend here will go home with me tonight I will find you both places of honorable employment. I will believe in you and trust you. You are both comparatively young men. Why should God lose you? It is a great thing to win the love of the Great Father. It is a small thing that I should love you. But if you need to feel again that there is love in the world, you will believe me when I say, my brothers, that I love you, and in the name of Him who was crucified for our sins I cannot bear to see you miss the glory of the human life. Come, be men! Make another try for it, God helping you. No one but God and you and myself need ever know anything of this tonight. He has forgiven it the minute you ask Him to. You will find that true. Come! We'll fight it out together, you two and I. It's worth fighting for, everlasting life is. It was the sinner that Christ came to help. I'll do what I can for you. O God, give me the souls of these two men!" and he broke into a prayer to God that was a continuation of his appeal to the men. His pent-up feeling had no other outlet. Before he had prayed many moments Burns was sitting with his face buried in his hands, sobbing. Where were his mother's prayers now? They were adding to the power of the Bishop's. And the other man, harder, less moved, without a previous knowledge of the Bishop, leaned back against the fence, stolid at first. But as the prayer went on, he was moved by it. What force of the Holy Spirit swept over his dulled, brutal, coarsened life, nothing but the eternal records of the recording angel can ever disclose. But the same supernatural Presence that smote Paul on the road to Damascus, and poured through Henry Maxwell's church the morning he asked disciples to follow in Jesus' steps, and had again broken irresistibly over the Nazareth Avenue congregation, now manifested Himself in this foul corner of the mighty city and over the natures of these two sinful sunken men, apparently lost to all the pleadings of conscience and memory and God. The prayer seemed to red open the crust that for years had surrounded them and shut them off from divine communication. And they themselves were thoroughly startled by it. The Bishop ceased, and at first he himself did not realize what had happened. Neither did they. Burns still sat with his head bowed between his knees. The man leaning against the fence looked at the Bishop with a face in which new emotions of awe, repentance, astonishment and a broken gleam of joy struggled for expression. The Bishop rose. "Come, my brothers. God is good. You shall stay at the Settlement tonight, and I will make good my promise as to the work." The two men followed him in silence. When they reached the Settlement it was after two o'clock. He let them in and led them to a room. At the door he paused a moment. His tall, commanding figure stood in the doorway and his pale face was illuminated with the divine glory. "God bless you, my brothers!" he said, and leaving them his benediction he went away. Chapter Twenty-eight IT WAS the afternoon of that morning when Burns was installed in his new position as assistant janitor that he was cleaning off the front steps of the Settlement, when he paused a moment and stood up to look about him. The first thing he noticed was a beer sign just across the alley. He could almost touch it with his broom from where he stood. Over the street immediately opposite were two large saloons, and a little farther down were three more. Suddenly the door of the nearest saloon opened and a man came out. At the same time two more went in. A strong odor of beer floated up to Burns as he stood on the steps. He clutched his broom handle tightly and began to sweep again. He had one foot on the porch and another on the steps just below. He took another step down, still sweeping. The sweat stood on his forehead although the day was frosty and the air chill. The saloon door opened again and three or four men came out. A child went in with a pail, and came out a moment later with a quart of beer. The child went by on the sidewalk just below him, and the odor of the beer came up to him. He took another step down, still sweeping desperately. His fingers were purple as he clutched the handle of the broom. Then suddenly he pulled himself up one step and swept over the spot he had just cleaned. He then dragged himself by a tremendous effort back to the floor of the porch and went over into the corner of it farthest from the saloon and began to sweep there. "O God!" he cried, "if the Bishop would only come back!" The Bishop had gone out with Dr. Bruce somewhere, and there was no one about that he knew. He swept in the corner for two or three minutes. His face was drawn with the agony of his conflict. Gradually he edged out again towards the steps and began to go down them. He looked towards the sidewalk and saw that he had left one step unswept. The sight seemed to give him a reasonable excuse for going down there to finish his sweeping. He was on the sidewalk now, sweeping the last step, with his face towards the Settlement and his back turned partly on the saloon across the alley. He swept the step a dozen times. The sweat rolled over his face and dropped down at his feet. By degrees he felt that he was drawn over towards that end of the step nearest the saloon. He could smell the beer and rum now as the fumes rose around him. It was like the infernal sulphur of the lowest hell, and yet it dragged him as by a giant's hand nearer its source. He was down in the middle of the sidewalk now, still sweeping. He cleared the space in front of the Settlement and even went out into the gutter and swept that. He took off his hat and rubbed his sleeve over his face. His lips were pallid and his teeth chattered. He trembled all over like a palsied man and staggered back and forth as if he was already drunk. His soul shook within him. He had crossed over the little piece of stone flagging that measured the width of the alley, and now he stood in front of the saloon, looking at the sign, and staring into the window at the pile of whiskey and beer bottles arranged in a great pyramid inside. He moistened his lips with his tongue and took a step forward, looking around him stealthily. The door suddenly opened again and someone came out. Again the hot, penetrating smell of liquor swept out into the cold air, and he took another step towards the saloon door which had shut behind the customer. As he laid his fingers on the door handle, a tall figure came around the corner. It was the Bishop. He seized Burns by the arm and dragged him back upon the sidewalk. The frenzied man, now mad for a drink, shrieked out a curse and struck at his friend savagely. It is doubtful if he really knew at first who was snatching him away from his ruin. The blow fell upon the Bishop's face and cut a gash in his cheek. He never uttered a word. But over his face a look of majestic sorrow swept. He picked Burns up as if he had been a child and actually carried him up the steps and into the house. He put him down in the hall and then shut the door and put his back against it. Burns fell on his knees sobbing and praying. The Bishop stood there panting with his exertion, although Burns was a slightly-built man and had not been a great weight for a man of his strength to carry. He was moved with unspeakable pity. "Pray, Burns--pray as you never prayed before! Nothing else will save you!" "O God! Pray with me. Save me! Oh, save me from my hell!" cried Burns. And, the Bishop knelt by him in the hall and prayed as only he could pray. After that they rose and Burns went to his room. He came out of it that evening like a humble child. And the Bishop went his way older from that experience, bearing on his body the marks of the Lord Jesus. Truly he was learning something of what it means to walk in His steps. But the saloon! It stood there, and all the others lined the street like so many traps set for Burns. How long would the man be able to resist the smell of the damnable stuff? The Bishop went out on the porch. The air of the whole city seemed to be impregnated with the odor of beer. "How long, O Lord, how long?" he prayed. Dr. Bruce came out, and the two friends talked about Burns and his temptation. "Did you ever make any inquiries about the ownership of this property adjoining us?" the Bishop asked. "No, I haven't taken time for it. I will now if you think it would be worth while. But what can we do, Edward, against the saloon in this great city? It is as firmly established as the churches or politics. What power can ever remove it?" "God will do it in time, as He has removed slavery," was the grave reply. "Meanwhile I think we have a right to know who controls this saloon so near the Settlement." "I'll find out," said Dr. Bruce. Two days later he walked into the business office of one of the members of Nazareth Avenue Church and asked to see him a few moments. He was cordially received by his old parishioner, who welcomed him into his room and urged him to take all the time he wanted. "I called to see you about that property next the Settlement where the Bishop and myself now are, you know. I am going to speak plainly, because life is too short and too serious for us both to have any foolish hesitation about this matter. Clayton, do you think it is right to rent that property for a saloon?" Dr. Bruce's question was as direct and uncompromising as he had meant it to be. The effect of it on his old parishioner was instantaneous. The hot blood mounted to the face of the man who sat there beneath a picture of business activity in a great city. Then he grew pale, dropped his head on his hands, and when he raised it again Dr. Bruce was amazed to see a tear roll over his face. "Doctor, did you know that I took the pledge that morning with the others?" "Yes, I remember." "But you never knew how I have been tormented over my failure to keep it in this instance. That saloon property has been the temptation of the devil to me. It is the best paying investment at present that I have. And yet it was only a minute before you came in here that I was in an agony of remorse to think how I was letting a little earthly gain tempt me into a denial of the very Christ I had promised to follow. I knew well enough that He would never rent property for such a purpose. There is no need, Dr. Bruce, for you to say a word more." Clayton held out his hand and Dr. Bruce grasped it and shook it hard. After a little he went away. But it was a long time afterwards that he learned all the truth about the struggle that Clayton had known. It was only a part of the history that belonged to Nazareth Avenue Church since that memorable morning when the Holy Spirit sanctioned the Christ-like pledge. Not even the Bishop and Dr. Bruce, moving as they now did in the very presence itself of divine impulses, knew yet that over the whole sinful city the Spirit was brooding with mighty eagerness, waiting for the disciples to arise to the call of sacrifice and suffering, touching hearts long dull and cold, making business men and money-makers uneasy in their absorption by the one great struggle for more wealth, and stirring through the church as never in all the city's history the church had been moved. The Bishop and Dr. Bruce had already seen some wonderful things in their brief life at the Settlement. They were to see far greater soon, more astonishing revelations of the divine power than they had supposed possible in this age of the world. Within a month the saloon next the Settlement was closed. The saloon-keeper's lease had expired, and Clayton not only closed the property to the whiskey men, but offered the building to the Bishop and Dr. Bruce to use for the Settlement work, which had now grown so large that the building they had first rented was not sufficient for the different industries that were planned. One of the most important of these was the pure-food department suggested by Felicia. It was not a month after Clayton turned the saloon property over to the Settlement that Felicia found herself installed in the very room where souls had been lost, as head of the department not only of cooking but of a course of housekeeping for girls who wished to go out to service. She was now a resident of the Settlement, and found a home with Mrs. Bruce and the other young women from the city who were residents. Martha, the violinist, remained at the place where the Bishop had first discovered the two girls, and came over to the Settlement certain evenings to give lessons in music. "Felicia, tell us your plan in full now," said the Bishop one evening when, in a rare interval of rest from the great pressure of work, he was with Dr. Bruce, and Felicia had come in from the other building. "Well, I have long thought of the hired girl problem," said Felicia with an air of wisdom that made Mrs. Bruce smile as she looked at the enthusiastic, vital beauty of this young girl, transformed into a new creature by the promise she had made to live the Christ-like life. "And I have reached certain conclusions in regard to it that you men are not yet able to fathom, but Mrs. Bruce will understand me." "We acknowledge our infancy, Felicia. Go on," said the Bishop humbly. "Then this is what I propose to do. The old saloon building is large enough to arrange into a suite of rooms that will represent an ordinary house. My plan is to have it so arranged, and then teach housekeeping and cooking to girls who will afterwards go out to service. The course will be six months' long; in that time I will teach plain cooking, neatness, quickness, and a love of good work." "Hold on, Felicia!" the Bishop interrupted, "this is not an age of miracles!" "Then we will make it one," replied Felicia. "I know this seems like an impossibility, but I want to try it. I know a score of girls already who will take the course, and if we can once establish something like an esprit de corps among the girls themselves, I am sure it will be of great value to them. I know already that the pure food is working a revolution in many families." "Felicia, if you can accomplish half what you propose it will bless this community," said Mrs. Bruce. "I don't see how you can do it, but I say, God bless you, as you try." "So say we all!" cried Dr. Bruce and the Bishop, and Felicia plunged into the working out of her plan with the enthusiasm of her discipleship which every day grew more and more practical and serviceable. It must be said here that Felicia's plan succeeded beyond all expectations. She developed wonderful powers of persuasion, and taught her girls with astonishing rapidity to do all sorts of housework. In time, the graduates of Felicia's cooking school came to be prized by housekeepers all over the city. But that is anticipating our story. The history of the Settlement has never yet been written. When it is Felicia's part will be found of very great importance. The depth of winter found Chicago presenting, as every great city of the world presents to the eyes of Christendom the marked contrast between riches and poverty, between culture, refinement, luxury, ease, and ignorance, depravity, destitution and the bitter struggle for bread. It was a hard winter but a gay winter. Never had there been such a succession of parties, receptions, balls, dinners, banquets, fetes, gayeties. Never had the opera and the theatre been so crowded with fashionable audiences. Never had there been such a lavish display of jewels and fine dresses and equipages. And on the other hand, never had the deep want and suffering been so cruel, so sharp, so murderous. Never had the winds blown so chilling over the lake and through the thin shells of tenements in the neighborhood of the Settlement. Never had the pressure for food and fuel and clothes been so urgently thrust up against the people of the city in their most importunate and ghastly form. Night after night the Bishop and Dr. Bruce with their helpers went out and helped save men and women and children from the torture of physical privation. Vast quantities of food and clothing and large sums of money were donated by the churches, the charitable societies, the civic authorities and the benevolent associations. But the personal touch of the Christian disciple was very hard to secure for personal work. Where was the discipleship that was obeying the Master's command to go itself to the suffering and give itself with its gift in order to make the gift of value in time to come? The Bishop found his heart sing within him as he faced this fact more than any other. Men would give money who would not think of giving themselves. And the money they gave did not represent any real sacrifice because they did not miss it. They gave what was the easiest to give, what hurt them the least. Where did the sacrifice come in? Was this following Jesus? Was this going with Him all the way? He had been to members of his own aristocratic, splendidly wealthy congregations, and was appalled to find how few men and women of that luxurious class in the churches would really suffer any genuine inconvenience for the sake of suffering humanity. Is charity the giving of worn-out garments? Is it a ten-dollar bill given to a paid visitor or secretary of some benevolent organization in the church? Shall the man never go and give his gift himself? Shall the woman never deny herself her reception or her party or her musicale, and go and actually touch, herself, the foul, sinful sore of diseased humanity as it festers in the great metropolis? Shall charity be conveniently and easily done through some organization? Is it possible to organize the affections so that love shall work disagreeable things by proxy? All this the Bishop asked as he plunged deeper into the sin and sorrow of that bitter winter. He was bearing his cross with joy. But he burned and fought within over the shifting of personal love by the many upon the hearts of the few. And still, silently, powerfully, resistlessly, the Holy Spirit was moving through the churches, even the aristocratic, wealthy, ease-loving members who shunned the terrors of the social problem as they would shun a contagious disease. Chapter Twenty-nine THE breakfast hour at the settlement was the one hour in the day when the whole family found a little breathing space to fellowship together. It was an hour of relaxation. There was a great deal of good-natured repartee and much real wit and enjoyable fun at this hour. The Bishop told his best stories. Dr. Bruce was at his best in anecdote. This company of disciples was healthily humorous in spite of the atmosphere of sorrow that constantly surrounded them. In fact, the Bishop often said the faculty of humor was as God-given as any other and in his own case it was the only safety valve he had for the tremendous pressure put upon him. This particular morning he was reading extracts from a morning paper for the benefit of the others. Suddenly he paused and his face instantly grew stern and sad. The rest looked up and a hush fell over the table. "Shot and killed while taking a lump of coal from a car! His family was freezing and he had had no work for six months. Six children and a wife all packed into a cabin with three rooms, on the West Side. One child wrapped in rags | cemetery | How many times the word 'cemetery' appears in the text? | 0 |
uttered an oath at the small amount of change he found. As he uttered it, the man with the pistol savagely said, "Jerk out his watch! We might as well get all we can out of the job!" The man with the stake was on the point of laying hold of the chain where there was a sound of footsteps coming towards him. "Get behind the fence! We haven't half searched him yet! Mind you keep shut now, if you don't want--" The man with the pistol made a significant gesture with it and, with his companion, pulled and pushed the Bishop down the alley and through a ragged, broken opening in the fence. The three stood still there in the shadow until the footsteps passed. "Now, then, have you got the watch?" asked the man with the pistol. "No, the chain is caught somewhere!" and the other man swore again. "Break it then!" "No, don't break it," the Bishop said, and it was the first time he had spoken. "The chain is the gift of a very dear friend. I should be sorry to have it broken." At the sound of the Bishop's voice the man with the pistol started as if he had been suddenly shot by his own weapon. With a quick movement of his other hand he turned the Bishop's head toward's what little light was shining from the alleyway, at the same time taking a step nearer. Then, to the amazement of his companion, he said roughly: "Leave the watch alone! We've got the money. That's enough!" "Enough! Fifty cents! You don't reckon--" Before the man with the stake could say another word he was confronted with the muzzle of the pistol turned from the Bishop's head towards his own. "Leave that watch be! And put back the money too. This is the Bishop we've held up--the Bishop--do you hear?" "And what of it! The President of the United States wouldn't be too good to hold up, if--" "I say, you put the money back, or in five seconds I'll blow a hole through your head that'll let in more sense than you have to spare now!" said the other. For a second the man with the stake seemed to hesitate at this strange turn in events, as if measuring his companion's intention. Then he hastily dropped the money back into the rifled pocket. "You can take your hands down, sir." The man lowered his weapon slowly, still keeping an eye on the other man, and speaking with rough respect. The Bishop slowly brought his arms to his side, and looked earnestly at the two men. In the dim light it was difficult to distinguish features. He was evidently free to go his way now, but he stood there making no movement. "You can go on. You needn't stay any longer on our account." The man who had acted as spokesman turned and sat down on a stone. The other man stood viciously digging his stake into the ground. "That's just what I am staying for," replied the Bishop. He sat down on a board that projected from the broken fence. "You must like our company. It is hard sometimes for people to tear themselves away from us," and the man standing up laughed coarsely. "Shut up!" exclaimed the other. "We're on the road to hell, though, that's sure enough. We need better company than ourselves and the devil." "If you would only allow me to be of any help," the Bishop spoke gently, even lovingly. The man on the stone stared at the Bishop through the darkness. After a moment of silence he spoke slowly like one who had finally decided upon a course he had at first rejected. "Do you remember ever seeing me before?" "No," said the Bishop. "The light is not very good and I have really not had a good look at you." "Do you know me now?" The man suddenly took off his hat and getting up from the stone walked over to the Bishop until they were near enough to touch each other. The man's hair was coal black except one spot on the top of his head about as large as the palm of the hand, which was white. The minute the Bishop saw that, he started. The memory of fifteen years ago began to stir in him. The man helped him. "Don't you remember one day back in '81 or '82 a man came to your house and told a story about his wife and child having been burned to death in a tenement fire in New York?" "Yes, I begin to remember now." The other man seemed to be interested. He ceased digging his stake in the ground and stood still listening. "Do you remember how you took me into your own house that night and spent all next day trying to find me a job? And how when you succeeded in getting me a place in a warehouse as foreman, I promised to quit drinking because you asked me to?" "I remember it now. I hope you have kept your promise." The man laughed savagely. Then he struck his hand against the fence with such sudden passion that he drew blood. "Kept it! I was drunk inside of a week! I've been drinking ever since. But I've never forgotten you nor your prayer. Do you remember the morning after I came to your house, after breakfast you had prayers and asked me to come in and sit with the rest? That got me! But my mother used to pray! I can see her now kneeling down by my bed when I was a lad. Father came in one night and kicked her while she was kneeling there by me. But I never forgot that prayer of yours that morning. You prayed for me just as mother used to, and you didn't seem to take 'count of the fact that I was ragged and tough-looking and more than half drunk when I rang your door bell. Oh, what a life I've lived! The saloon has housed me and homed me and made hell on earth for me. But that prayer stuck to me all the time. My promise not to drink was broken into a thousand pieces inside of two Sundays, and I lost the job you found for me and landed in a police station two days later, but I never forgot you nor your prayer. I don't know what good it has done me, but I never forgot it. And I won't do any harm to you nor let any one else. So you're free to go. That's why." The Bishop did not stir. Somewhere a church clock struck one. The man had put on his hat and gone back to his seat on the stone. The Bishop was thinking hard. "How long is it since you had work?" he asked, and the man standing up answered for the other. "More'n six months since either of us did anything to tell of; unless you count 'holding up' work. I call it pretty wearing kind of a job myself, especially when we put in a night like this and don't make nothin'." "Suppose I found good jobs for both of you? Would you quit this and begin all over?" "What's the use?" the man on the stone spoke sullenly. "I've reformed a hundred times. Every time I go down deeper. The devil's begun to foreclose on me already. It's too late." "No!" said the Bishop. And never before the most entranced audience had he felt the desire for souls burn up in him so strongly. All the time he sat there during the remarkable scene he prayed, "O Lord Jesus, give me the souls of these two for Thee! I am hungry for them. Give them to me!" "No!" the Bishop repeated. "What does God want of you two men? It doesn't so much matter what I want. But He wants just what I do in this case. You two men are of infinite value to Him." And then his wonderful memory came to his aid in an appeal such as no one on earth among men could make under such circumstances. He had remembered the man's name in spite of the wonderfully busy years that lay between his coming to the house and the present moment. "Burns," he said, and he yearned over the men with an unspeakable longing for them both, "if you and your friend here will go home with me tonight I will find you both places of honorable employment. I will believe in you and trust you. You are both comparatively young men. Why should God lose you? It is a great thing to win the love of the Great Father. It is a small thing that I should love you. But if you need to feel again that there is love in the world, you will believe me when I say, my brothers, that I love you, and in the name of Him who was crucified for our sins I cannot bear to see you miss the glory of the human life. Come, be men! Make another try for it, God helping you. No one but God and you and myself need ever know anything of this tonight. He has forgiven it the minute you ask Him to. You will find that true. Come! We'll fight it out together, you two and I. It's worth fighting for, everlasting life is. It was the sinner that Christ came to help. I'll do what I can for you. O God, give me the souls of these two men!" and he broke into a prayer to God that was a continuation of his appeal to the men. His pent-up feeling had no other outlet. Before he had prayed many moments Burns was sitting with his face buried in his hands, sobbing. Where were his mother's prayers now? They were adding to the power of the Bishop's. And the other man, harder, less moved, without a previous knowledge of the Bishop, leaned back against the fence, stolid at first. But as the prayer went on, he was moved by it. What force of the Holy Spirit swept over his dulled, brutal, coarsened life, nothing but the eternal records of the recording angel can ever disclose. But the same supernatural Presence that smote Paul on the road to Damascus, and poured through Henry Maxwell's church the morning he asked disciples to follow in Jesus' steps, and had again broken irresistibly over the Nazareth Avenue congregation, now manifested Himself in this foul corner of the mighty city and over the natures of these two sinful sunken men, apparently lost to all the pleadings of conscience and memory and God. The prayer seemed to red open the crust that for years had surrounded them and shut them off from divine communication. And they themselves were thoroughly startled by it. The Bishop ceased, and at first he himself did not realize what had happened. Neither did they. Burns still sat with his head bowed between his knees. The man leaning against the fence looked at the Bishop with a face in which new emotions of awe, repentance, astonishment and a broken gleam of joy struggled for expression. The Bishop rose. "Come, my brothers. God is good. You shall stay at the Settlement tonight, and I will make good my promise as to the work." The two men followed him in silence. When they reached the Settlement it was after two o'clock. He let them in and led them to a room. At the door he paused a moment. His tall, commanding figure stood in the doorway and his pale face was illuminated with the divine glory. "God bless you, my brothers!" he said, and leaving them his benediction he went away. Chapter Twenty-eight IT WAS the afternoon of that morning when Burns was installed in his new position as assistant janitor that he was cleaning off the front steps of the Settlement, when he paused a moment and stood up to look about him. The first thing he noticed was a beer sign just across the alley. He could almost touch it with his broom from where he stood. Over the street immediately opposite were two large saloons, and a little farther down were three more. Suddenly the door of the nearest saloon opened and a man came out. At the same time two more went in. A strong odor of beer floated up to Burns as he stood on the steps. He clutched his broom handle tightly and began to sweep again. He had one foot on the porch and another on the steps just below. He took another step down, still sweeping. The sweat stood on his forehead although the day was frosty and the air chill. The saloon door opened again and three or four men came out. A child went in with a pail, and came out a moment later with a quart of beer. The child went by on the sidewalk just below him, and the odor of the beer came up to him. He took another step down, still sweeping desperately. His fingers were purple as he clutched the handle of the broom. Then suddenly he pulled himself up one step and swept over the spot he had just cleaned. He then dragged himself by a tremendous effort back to the floor of the porch and went over into the corner of it farthest from the saloon and began to sweep there. "O God!" he cried, "if the Bishop would only come back!" The Bishop had gone out with Dr. Bruce somewhere, and there was no one about that he knew. He swept in the corner for two or three minutes. His face was drawn with the agony of his conflict. Gradually he edged out again towards the steps and began to go down them. He looked towards the sidewalk and saw that he had left one step unswept. The sight seemed to give him a reasonable excuse for going down there to finish his sweeping. He was on the sidewalk now, sweeping the last step, with his face towards the Settlement and his back turned partly on the saloon across the alley. He swept the step a dozen times. The sweat rolled over his face and dropped down at his feet. By degrees he felt that he was drawn over towards that end of the step nearest the saloon. He could smell the beer and rum now as the fumes rose around him. It was like the infernal sulphur of the lowest hell, and yet it dragged him as by a giant's hand nearer its source. He was down in the middle of the sidewalk now, still sweeping. He cleared the space in front of the Settlement and even went out into the gutter and swept that. He took off his hat and rubbed his sleeve over his face. His lips were pallid and his teeth chattered. He trembled all over like a palsied man and staggered back and forth as if he was already drunk. His soul shook within him. He had crossed over the little piece of stone flagging that measured the width of the alley, and now he stood in front of the saloon, looking at the sign, and staring into the window at the pile of whiskey and beer bottles arranged in a great pyramid inside. He moistened his lips with his tongue and took a step forward, looking around him stealthily. The door suddenly opened again and someone came out. Again the hot, penetrating smell of liquor swept out into the cold air, and he took another step towards the saloon door which had shut behind the customer. As he laid his fingers on the door handle, a tall figure came around the corner. It was the Bishop. He seized Burns by the arm and dragged him back upon the sidewalk. The frenzied man, now mad for a drink, shrieked out a curse and struck at his friend savagely. It is doubtful if he really knew at first who was snatching him away from his ruin. The blow fell upon the Bishop's face and cut a gash in his cheek. He never uttered a word. But over his face a look of majestic sorrow swept. He picked Burns up as if he had been a child and actually carried him up the steps and into the house. He put him down in the hall and then shut the door and put his back against it. Burns fell on his knees sobbing and praying. The Bishop stood there panting with his exertion, although Burns was a slightly-built man and had not been a great weight for a man of his strength to carry. He was moved with unspeakable pity. "Pray, Burns--pray as you never prayed before! Nothing else will save you!" "O God! Pray with me. Save me! Oh, save me from my hell!" cried Burns. And, the Bishop knelt by him in the hall and prayed as only he could pray. After that they rose and Burns went to his room. He came out of it that evening like a humble child. And the Bishop went his way older from that experience, bearing on his body the marks of the Lord Jesus. Truly he was learning something of what it means to walk in His steps. But the saloon! It stood there, and all the others lined the street like so many traps set for Burns. How long would the man be able to resist the smell of the damnable stuff? The Bishop went out on the porch. The air of the whole city seemed to be impregnated with the odor of beer. "How long, O Lord, how long?" he prayed. Dr. Bruce came out, and the two friends talked about Burns and his temptation. "Did you ever make any inquiries about the ownership of this property adjoining us?" the Bishop asked. "No, I haven't taken time for it. I will now if you think it would be worth while. But what can we do, Edward, against the saloon in this great city? It is as firmly established as the churches or politics. What power can ever remove it?" "God will do it in time, as He has removed slavery," was the grave reply. "Meanwhile I think we have a right to know who controls this saloon so near the Settlement." "I'll find out," said Dr. Bruce. Two days later he walked into the business office of one of the members of Nazareth Avenue Church and asked to see him a few moments. He was cordially received by his old parishioner, who welcomed him into his room and urged him to take all the time he wanted. "I called to see you about that property next the Settlement where the Bishop and myself now are, you know. I am going to speak plainly, because life is too short and too serious for us both to have any foolish hesitation about this matter. Clayton, do you think it is right to rent that property for a saloon?" Dr. Bruce's question was as direct and uncompromising as he had meant it to be. The effect of it on his old parishioner was instantaneous. The hot blood mounted to the face of the man who sat there beneath a picture of business activity in a great city. Then he grew pale, dropped his head on his hands, and when he raised it again Dr. Bruce was amazed to see a tear roll over his face. "Doctor, did you know that I took the pledge that morning with the others?" "Yes, I remember." "But you never knew how I have been tormented over my failure to keep it in this instance. That saloon property has been the temptation of the devil to me. It is the best paying investment at present that I have. And yet it was only a minute before you came in here that I was in an agony of remorse to think how I was letting a little earthly gain tempt me into a denial of the very Christ I had promised to follow. I knew well enough that He would never rent property for such a purpose. There is no need, Dr. Bruce, for you to say a word more." Clayton held out his hand and Dr. Bruce grasped it and shook it hard. After a little he went away. But it was a long time afterwards that he learned all the truth about the struggle that Clayton had known. It was only a part of the history that belonged to Nazareth Avenue Church since that memorable morning when the Holy Spirit sanctioned the Christ-like pledge. Not even the Bishop and Dr. Bruce, moving as they now did in the very presence itself of divine impulses, knew yet that over the whole sinful city the Spirit was brooding with mighty eagerness, waiting for the disciples to arise to the call of sacrifice and suffering, touching hearts long dull and cold, making business men and money-makers uneasy in their absorption by the one great struggle for more wealth, and stirring through the church as never in all the city's history the church had been moved. The Bishop and Dr. Bruce had already seen some wonderful things in their brief life at the Settlement. They were to see far greater soon, more astonishing revelations of the divine power than they had supposed possible in this age of the world. Within a month the saloon next the Settlement was closed. The saloon-keeper's lease had expired, and Clayton not only closed the property to the whiskey men, but offered the building to the Bishop and Dr. Bruce to use for the Settlement work, which had now grown so large that the building they had first rented was not sufficient for the different industries that were planned. One of the most important of these was the pure-food department suggested by Felicia. It was not a month after Clayton turned the saloon property over to the Settlement that Felicia found herself installed in the very room where souls had been lost, as head of the department not only of cooking but of a course of housekeeping for girls who wished to go out to service. She was now a resident of the Settlement, and found a home with Mrs. Bruce and the other young women from the city who were residents. Martha, the violinist, remained at the place where the Bishop had first discovered the two girls, and came over to the Settlement certain evenings to give lessons in music. "Felicia, tell us your plan in full now," said the Bishop one evening when, in a rare interval of rest from the great pressure of work, he was with Dr. Bruce, and Felicia had come in from the other building. "Well, I have long thought of the hired girl problem," said Felicia with an air of wisdom that made Mrs. Bruce smile as she looked at the enthusiastic, vital beauty of this young girl, transformed into a new creature by the promise she had made to live the Christ-like life. "And I have reached certain conclusions in regard to it that you men are not yet able to fathom, but Mrs. Bruce will understand me." "We acknowledge our infancy, Felicia. Go on," said the Bishop humbly. "Then this is what I propose to do. The old saloon building is large enough to arrange into a suite of rooms that will represent an ordinary house. My plan is to have it so arranged, and then teach housekeeping and cooking to girls who will afterwards go out to service. The course will be six months' long; in that time I will teach plain cooking, neatness, quickness, and a love of good work." "Hold on, Felicia!" the Bishop interrupted, "this is not an age of miracles!" "Then we will make it one," replied Felicia. "I know this seems like an impossibility, but I want to try it. I know a score of girls already who will take the course, and if we can once establish something like an esprit de corps among the girls themselves, I am sure it will be of great value to them. I know already that the pure food is working a revolution in many families." "Felicia, if you can accomplish half what you propose it will bless this community," said Mrs. Bruce. "I don't see how you can do it, but I say, God bless you, as you try." "So say we all!" cried Dr. Bruce and the Bishop, and Felicia plunged into the working out of her plan with the enthusiasm of her discipleship which every day grew more and more practical and serviceable. It must be said here that Felicia's plan succeeded beyond all expectations. She developed wonderful powers of persuasion, and taught her girls with astonishing rapidity to do all sorts of housework. In time, the graduates of Felicia's cooking school came to be prized by housekeepers all over the city. But that is anticipating our story. The history of the Settlement has never yet been written. When it is Felicia's part will be found of very great importance. The depth of winter found Chicago presenting, as every great city of the world presents to the eyes of Christendom the marked contrast between riches and poverty, between culture, refinement, luxury, ease, and ignorance, depravity, destitution and the bitter struggle for bread. It was a hard winter but a gay winter. Never had there been such a succession of parties, receptions, balls, dinners, banquets, fetes, gayeties. Never had the opera and the theatre been so crowded with fashionable audiences. Never had there been such a lavish display of jewels and fine dresses and equipages. And on the other hand, never had the deep want and suffering been so cruel, so sharp, so murderous. Never had the winds blown so chilling over the lake and through the thin shells of tenements in the neighborhood of the Settlement. Never had the pressure for food and fuel and clothes been so urgently thrust up against the people of the city in their most importunate and ghastly form. Night after night the Bishop and Dr. Bruce with their helpers went out and helped save men and women and children from the torture of physical privation. Vast quantities of food and clothing and large sums of money were donated by the churches, the charitable societies, the civic authorities and the benevolent associations. But the personal touch of the Christian disciple was very hard to secure for personal work. Where was the discipleship that was obeying the Master's command to go itself to the suffering and give itself with its gift in order to make the gift of value in time to come? The Bishop found his heart sing within him as he faced this fact more than any other. Men would give money who would not think of giving themselves. And the money they gave did not represent any real sacrifice because they did not miss it. They gave what was the easiest to give, what hurt them the least. Where did the sacrifice come in? Was this following Jesus? Was this going with Him all the way? He had been to members of his own aristocratic, splendidly wealthy congregations, and was appalled to find how few men and women of that luxurious class in the churches would really suffer any genuine inconvenience for the sake of suffering humanity. Is charity the giving of worn-out garments? Is it a ten-dollar bill given to a paid visitor or secretary of some benevolent organization in the church? Shall the man never go and give his gift himself? Shall the woman never deny herself her reception or her party or her musicale, and go and actually touch, herself, the foul, sinful sore of diseased humanity as it festers in the great metropolis? Shall charity be conveniently and easily done through some organization? Is it possible to organize the affections so that love shall work disagreeable things by proxy? All this the Bishop asked as he plunged deeper into the sin and sorrow of that bitter winter. He was bearing his cross with joy. But he burned and fought within over the shifting of personal love by the many upon the hearts of the few. And still, silently, powerfully, resistlessly, the Holy Spirit was moving through the churches, even the aristocratic, wealthy, ease-loving members who shunned the terrors of the social problem as they would shun a contagious disease. Chapter Twenty-nine THE breakfast hour at the settlement was the one hour in the day when the whole family found a little breathing space to fellowship together. It was an hour of relaxation. There was a great deal of good-natured repartee and much real wit and enjoyable fun at this hour. The Bishop told his best stories. Dr. Bruce was at his best in anecdote. This company of disciples was healthily humorous in spite of the atmosphere of sorrow that constantly surrounded them. In fact, the Bishop often said the faculty of humor was as God-given as any other and in his own case it was the only safety valve he had for the tremendous pressure put upon him. This particular morning he was reading extracts from a morning paper for the benefit of the others. Suddenly he paused and his face instantly grew stern and sad. The rest looked up and a hush fell over the table. "Shot and killed while taking a lump of coal from a car! His family was freezing and he had had no work for six months. Six children and a wife all packed into a cabin with three rooms, on the West Side. One child wrapped in rags | savagely | How many times the word 'savagely' appears in the text? | 3 |
uttered an oath at the small amount of change he found. As he uttered it, the man with the pistol savagely said, "Jerk out his watch! We might as well get all we can out of the job!" The man with the stake was on the point of laying hold of the chain where there was a sound of footsteps coming towards him. "Get behind the fence! We haven't half searched him yet! Mind you keep shut now, if you don't want--" The man with the pistol made a significant gesture with it and, with his companion, pulled and pushed the Bishop down the alley and through a ragged, broken opening in the fence. The three stood still there in the shadow until the footsteps passed. "Now, then, have you got the watch?" asked the man with the pistol. "No, the chain is caught somewhere!" and the other man swore again. "Break it then!" "No, don't break it," the Bishop said, and it was the first time he had spoken. "The chain is the gift of a very dear friend. I should be sorry to have it broken." At the sound of the Bishop's voice the man with the pistol started as if he had been suddenly shot by his own weapon. With a quick movement of his other hand he turned the Bishop's head toward's what little light was shining from the alleyway, at the same time taking a step nearer. Then, to the amazement of his companion, he said roughly: "Leave the watch alone! We've got the money. That's enough!" "Enough! Fifty cents! You don't reckon--" Before the man with the stake could say another word he was confronted with the muzzle of the pistol turned from the Bishop's head towards his own. "Leave that watch be! And put back the money too. This is the Bishop we've held up--the Bishop--do you hear?" "And what of it! The President of the United States wouldn't be too good to hold up, if--" "I say, you put the money back, or in five seconds I'll blow a hole through your head that'll let in more sense than you have to spare now!" said the other. For a second the man with the stake seemed to hesitate at this strange turn in events, as if measuring his companion's intention. Then he hastily dropped the money back into the rifled pocket. "You can take your hands down, sir." The man lowered his weapon slowly, still keeping an eye on the other man, and speaking with rough respect. The Bishop slowly brought his arms to his side, and looked earnestly at the two men. In the dim light it was difficult to distinguish features. He was evidently free to go his way now, but he stood there making no movement. "You can go on. You needn't stay any longer on our account." The man who had acted as spokesman turned and sat down on a stone. The other man stood viciously digging his stake into the ground. "That's just what I am staying for," replied the Bishop. He sat down on a board that projected from the broken fence. "You must like our company. It is hard sometimes for people to tear themselves away from us," and the man standing up laughed coarsely. "Shut up!" exclaimed the other. "We're on the road to hell, though, that's sure enough. We need better company than ourselves and the devil." "If you would only allow me to be of any help," the Bishop spoke gently, even lovingly. The man on the stone stared at the Bishop through the darkness. After a moment of silence he spoke slowly like one who had finally decided upon a course he had at first rejected. "Do you remember ever seeing me before?" "No," said the Bishop. "The light is not very good and I have really not had a good look at you." "Do you know me now?" The man suddenly took off his hat and getting up from the stone walked over to the Bishop until they were near enough to touch each other. The man's hair was coal black except one spot on the top of his head about as large as the palm of the hand, which was white. The minute the Bishop saw that, he started. The memory of fifteen years ago began to stir in him. The man helped him. "Don't you remember one day back in '81 or '82 a man came to your house and told a story about his wife and child having been burned to death in a tenement fire in New York?" "Yes, I begin to remember now." The other man seemed to be interested. He ceased digging his stake in the ground and stood still listening. "Do you remember how you took me into your own house that night and spent all next day trying to find me a job? And how when you succeeded in getting me a place in a warehouse as foreman, I promised to quit drinking because you asked me to?" "I remember it now. I hope you have kept your promise." The man laughed savagely. Then he struck his hand against the fence with such sudden passion that he drew blood. "Kept it! I was drunk inside of a week! I've been drinking ever since. But I've never forgotten you nor your prayer. Do you remember the morning after I came to your house, after breakfast you had prayers and asked me to come in and sit with the rest? That got me! But my mother used to pray! I can see her now kneeling down by my bed when I was a lad. Father came in one night and kicked her while she was kneeling there by me. But I never forgot that prayer of yours that morning. You prayed for me just as mother used to, and you didn't seem to take 'count of the fact that I was ragged and tough-looking and more than half drunk when I rang your door bell. Oh, what a life I've lived! The saloon has housed me and homed me and made hell on earth for me. But that prayer stuck to me all the time. My promise not to drink was broken into a thousand pieces inside of two Sundays, and I lost the job you found for me and landed in a police station two days later, but I never forgot you nor your prayer. I don't know what good it has done me, but I never forgot it. And I won't do any harm to you nor let any one else. So you're free to go. That's why." The Bishop did not stir. Somewhere a church clock struck one. The man had put on his hat and gone back to his seat on the stone. The Bishop was thinking hard. "How long is it since you had work?" he asked, and the man standing up answered for the other. "More'n six months since either of us did anything to tell of; unless you count 'holding up' work. I call it pretty wearing kind of a job myself, especially when we put in a night like this and don't make nothin'." "Suppose I found good jobs for both of you? Would you quit this and begin all over?" "What's the use?" the man on the stone spoke sullenly. "I've reformed a hundred times. Every time I go down deeper. The devil's begun to foreclose on me already. It's too late." "No!" said the Bishop. And never before the most entranced audience had he felt the desire for souls burn up in him so strongly. All the time he sat there during the remarkable scene he prayed, "O Lord Jesus, give me the souls of these two for Thee! I am hungry for them. Give them to me!" "No!" the Bishop repeated. "What does God want of you two men? It doesn't so much matter what I want. But He wants just what I do in this case. You two men are of infinite value to Him." And then his wonderful memory came to his aid in an appeal such as no one on earth among men could make under such circumstances. He had remembered the man's name in spite of the wonderfully busy years that lay between his coming to the house and the present moment. "Burns," he said, and he yearned over the men with an unspeakable longing for them both, "if you and your friend here will go home with me tonight I will find you both places of honorable employment. I will believe in you and trust you. You are both comparatively young men. Why should God lose you? It is a great thing to win the love of the Great Father. It is a small thing that I should love you. But if you need to feel again that there is love in the world, you will believe me when I say, my brothers, that I love you, and in the name of Him who was crucified for our sins I cannot bear to see you miss the glory of the human life. Come, be men! Make another try for it, God helping you. No one but God and you and myself need ever know anything of this tonight. He has forgiven it the minute you ask Him to. You will find that true. Come! We'll fight it out together, you two and I. It's worth fighting for, everlasting life is. It was the sinner that Christ came to help. I'll do what I can for you. O God, give me the souls of these two men!" and he broke into a prayer to God that was a continuation of his appeal to the men. His pent-up feeling had no other outlet. Before he had prayed many moments Burns was sitting with his face buried in his hands, sobbing. Where were his mother's prayers now? They were adding to the power of the Bishop's. And the other man, harder, less moved, without a previous knowledge of the Bishop, leaned back against the fence, stolid at first. But as the prayer went on, he was moved by it. What force of the Holy Spirit swept over his dulled, brutal, coarsened life, nothing but the eternal records of the recording angel can ever disclose. But the same supernatural Presence that smote Paul on the road to Damascus, and poured through Henry Maxwell's church the morning he asked disciples to follow in Jesus' steps, and had again broken irresistibly over the Nazareth Avenue congregation, now manifested Himself in this foul corner of the mighty city and over the natures of these two sinful sunken men, apparently lost to all the pleadings of conscience and memory and God. The prayer seemed to red open the crust that for years had surrounded them and shut them off from divine communication. And they themselves were thoroughly startled by it. The Bishop ceased, and at first he himself did not realize what had happened. Neither did they. Burns still sat with his head bowed between his knees. The man leaning against the fence looked at the Bishop with a face in which new emotions of awe, repentance, astonishment and a broken gleam of joy struggled for expression. The Bishop rose. "Come, my brothers. God is good. You shall stay at the Settlement tonight, and I will make good my promise as to the work." The two men followed him in silence. When they reached the Settlement it was after two o'clock. He let them in and led them to a room. At the door he paused a moment. His tall, commanding figure stood in the doorway and his pale face was illuminated with the divine glory. "God bless you, my brothers!" he said, and leaving them his benediction he went away. Chapter Twenty-eight IT WAS the afternoon of that morning when Burns was installed in his new position as assistant janitor that he was cleaning off the front steps of the Settlement, when he paused a moment and stood up to look about him. The first thing he noticed was a beer sign just across the alley. He could almost touch it with his broom from where he stood. Over the street immediately opposite were two large saloons, and a little farther down were three more. Suddenly the door of the nearest saloon opened and a man came out. At the same time two more went in. A strong odor of beer floated up to Burns as he stood on the steps. He clutched his broom handle tightly and began to sweep again. He had one foot on the porch and another on the steps just below. He took another step down, still sweeping. The sweat stood on his forehead although the day was frosty and the air chill. The saloon door opened again and three or four men came out. A child went in with a pail, and came out a moment later with a quart of beer. The child went by on the sidewalk just below him, and the odor of the beer came up to him. He took another step down, still sweeping desperately. His fingers were purple as he clutched the handle of the broom. Then suddenly he pulled himself up one step and swept over the spot he had just cleaned. He then dragged himself by a tremendous effort back to the floor of the porch and went over into the corner of it farthest from the saloon and began to sweep there. "O God!" he cried, "if the Bishop would only come back!" The Bishop had gone out with Dr. Bruce somewhere, and there was no one about that he knew. He swept in the corner for two or three minutes. His face was drawn with the agony of his conflict. Gradually he edged out again towards the steps and began to go down them. He looked towards the sidewalk and saw that he had left one step unswept. The sight seemed to give him a reasonable excuse for going down there to finish his sweeping. He was on the sidewalk now, sweeping the last step, with his face towards the Settlement and his back turned partly on the saloon across the alley. He swept the step a dozen times. The sweat rolled over his face and dropped down at his feet. By degrees he felt that he was drawn over towards that end of the step nearest the saloon. He could smell the beer and rum now as the fumes rose around him. It was like the infernal sulphur of the lowest hell, and yet it dragged him as by a giant's hand nearer its source. He was down in the middle of the sidewalk now, still sweeping. He cleared the space in front of the Settlement and even went out into the gutter and swept that. He took off his hat and rubbed his sleeve over his face. His lips were pallid and his teeth chattered. He trembled all over like a palsied man and staggered back and forth as if he was already drunk. His soul shook within him. He had crossed over the little piece of stone flagging that measured the width of the alley, and now he stood in front of the saloon, looking at the sign, and staring into the window at the pile of whiskey and beer bottles arranged in a great pyramid inside. He moistened his lips with his tongue and took a step forward, looking around him stealthily. The door suddenly opened again and someone came out. Again the hot, penetrating smell of liquor swept out into the cold air, and he took another step towards the saloon door which had shut behind the customer. As he laid his fingers on the door handle, a tall figure came around the corner. It was the Bishop. He seized Burns by the arm and dragged him back upon the sidewalk. The frenzied man, now mad for a drink, shrieked out a curse and struck at his friend savagely. It is doubtful if he really knew at first who was snatching him away from his ruin. The blow fell upon the Bishop's face and cut a gash in his cheek. He never uttered a word. But over his face a look of majestic sorrow swept. He picked Burns up as if he had been a child and actually carried him up the steps and into the house. He put him down in the hall and then shut the door and put his back against it. Burns fell on his knees sobbing and praying. The Bishop stood there panting with his exertion, although Burns was a slightly-built man and had not been a great weight for a man of his strength to carry. He was moved with unspeakable pity. "Pray, Burns--pray as you never prayed before! Nothing else will save you!" "O God! Pray with me. Save me! Oh, save me from my hell!" cried Burns. And, the Bishop knelt by him in the hall and prayed as only he could pray. After that they rose and Burns went to his room. He came out of it that evening like a humble child. And the Bishop went his way older from that experience, bearing on his body the marks of the Lord Jesus. Truly he was learning something of what it means to walk in His steps. But the saloon! It stood there, and all the others lined the street like so many traps set for Burns. How long would the man be able to resist the smell of the damnable stuff? The Bishop went out on the porch. The air of the whole city seemed to be impregnated with the odor of beer. "How long, O Lord, how long?" he prayed. Dr. Bruce came out, and the two friends talked about Burns and his temptation. "Did you ever make any inquiries about the ownership of this property adjoining us?" the Bishop asked. "No, I haven't taken time for it. I will now if you think it would be worth while. But what can we do, Edward, against the saloon in this great city? It is as firmly established as the churches or politics. What power can ever remove it?" "God will do it in time, as He has removed slavery," was the grave reply. "Meanwhile I think we have a right to know who controls this saloon so near the Settlement." "I'll find out," said Dr. Bruce. Two days later he walked into the business office of one of the members of Nazareth Avenue Church and asked to see him a few moments. He was cordially received by his old parishioner, who welcomed him into his room and urged him to take all the time he wanted. "I called to see you about that property next the Settlement where the Bishop and myself now are, you know. I am going to speak plainly, because life is too short and too serious for us both to have any foolish hesitation about this matter. Clayton, do you think it is right to rent that property for a saloon?" Dr. Bruce's question was as direct and uncompromising as he had meant it to be. The effect of it on his old parishioner was instantaneous. The hot blood mounted to the face of the man who sat there beneath a picture of business activity in a great city. Then he grew pale, dropped his head on his hands, and when he raised it again Dr. Bruce was amazed to see a tear roll over his face. "Doctor, did you know that I took the pledge that morning with the others?" "Yes, I remember." "But you never knew how I have been tormented over my failure to keep it in this instance. That saloon property has been the temptation of the devil to me. It is the best paying investment at present that I have. And yet it was only a minute before you came in here that I was in an agony of remorse to think how I was letting a little earthly gain tempt me into a denial of the very Christ I had promised to follow. I knew well enough that He would never rent property for such a purpose. There is no need, Dr. Bruce, for you to say a word more." Clayton held out his hand and Dr. Bruce grasped it and shook it hard. After a little he went away. But it was a long time afterwards that he learned all the truth about the struggle that Clayton had known. It was only a part of the history that belonged to Nazareth Avenue Church since that memorable morning when the Holy Spirit sanctioned the Christ-like pledge. Not even the Bishop and Dr. Bruce, moving as they now did in the very presence itself of divine impulses, knew yet that over the whole sinful city the Spirit was brooding with mighty eagerness, waiting for the disciples to arise to the call of sacrifice and suffering, touching hearts long dull and cold, making business men and money-makers uneasy in their absorption by the one great struggle for more wealth, and stirring through the church as never in all the city's history the church had been moved. The Bishop and Dr. Bruce had already seen some wonderful things in their brief life at the Settlement. They were to see far greater soon, more astonishing revelations of the divine power than they had supposed possible in this age of the world. Within a month the saloon next the Settlement was closed. The saloon-keeper's lease had expired, and Clayton not only closed the property to the whiskey men, but offered the building to the Bishop and Dr. Bruce to use for the Settlement work, which had now grown so large that the building they had first rented was not sufficient for the different industries that were planned. One of the most important of these was the pure-food department suggested by Felicia. It was not a month after Clayton turned the saloon property over to the Settlement that Felicia found herself installed in the very room where souls had been lost, as head of the department not only of cooking but of a course of housekeeping for girls who wished to go out to service. She was now a resident of the Settlement, and found a home with Mrs. Bruce and the other young women from the city who were residents. Martha, the violinist, remained at the place where the Bishop had first discovered the two girls, and came over to the Settlement certain evenings to give lessons in music. "Felicia, tell us your plan in full now," said the Bishop one evening when, in a rare interval of rest from the great pressure of work, he was with Dr. Bruce, and Felicia had come in from the other building. "Well, I have long thought of the hired girl problem," said Felicia with an air of wisdom that made Mrs. Bruce smile as she looked at the enthusiastic, vital beauty of this young girl, transformed into a new creature by the promise she had made to live the Christ-like life. "And I have reached certain conclusions in regard to it that you men are not yet able to fathom, but Mrs. Bruce will understand me." "We acknowledge our infancy, Felicia. Go on," said the Bishop humbly. "Then this is what I propose to do. The old saloon building is large enough to arrange into a suite of rooms that will represent an ordinary house. My plan is to have it so arranged, and then teach housekeeping and cooking to girls who will afterwards go out to service. The course will be six months' long; in that time I will teach plain cooking, neatness, quickness, and a love of good work." "Hold on, Felicia!" the Bishop interrupted, "this is not an age of miracles!" "Then we will make it one," replied Felicia. "I know this seems like an impossibility, but I want to try it. I know a score of girls already who will take the course, and if we can once establish something like an esprit de corps among the girls themselves, I am sure it will be of great value to them. I know already that the pure food is working a revolution in many families." "Felicia, if you can accomplish half what you propose it will bless this community," said Mrs. Bruce. "I don't see how you can do it, but I say, God bless you, as you try." "So say we all!" cried Dr. Bruce and the Bishop, and Felicia plunged into the working out of her plan with the enthusiasm of her discipleship which every day grew more and more practical and serviceable. It must be said here that Felicia's plan succeeded beyond all expectations. She developed wonderful powers of persuasion, and taught her girls with astonishing rapidity to do all sorts of housework. In time, the graduates of Felicia's cooking school came to be prized by housekeepers all over the city. But that is anticipating our story. The history of the Settlement has never yet been written. When it is Felicia's part will be found of very great importance. The depth of winter found Chicago presenting, as every great city of the world presents to the eyes of Christendom the marked contrast between riches and poverty, between culture, refinement, luxury, ease, and ignorance, depravity, destitution and the bitter struggle for bread. It was a hard winter but a gay winter. Never had there been such a succession of parties, receptions, balls, dinners, banquets, fetes, gayeties. Never had the opera and the theatre been so crowded with fashionable audiences. Never had there been such a lavish display of jewels and fine dresses and equipages. And on the other hand, never had the deep want and suffering been so cruel, so sharp, so murderous. Never had the winds blown so chilling over the lake and through the thin shells of tenements in the neighborhood of the Settlement. Never had the pressure for food and fuel and clothes been so urgently thrust up against the people of the city in their most importunate and ghastly form. Night after night the Bishop and Dr. Bruce with their helpers went out and helped save men and women and children from the torture of physical privation. Vast quantities of food and clothing and large sums of money were donated by the churches, the charitable societies, the civic authorities and the benevolent associations. But the personal touch of the Christian disciple was very hard to secure for personal work. Where was the discipleship that was obeying the Master's command to go itself to the suffering and give itself with its gift in order to make the gift of value in time to come? The Bishop found his heart sing within him as he faced this fact more than any other. Men would give money who would not think of giving themselves. And the money they gave did not represent any real sacrifice because they did not miss it. They gave what was the easiest to give, what hurt them the least. Where did the sacrifice come in? Was this following Jesus? Was this going with Him all the way? He had been to members of his own aristocratic, splendidly wealthy congregations, and was appalled to find how few men and women of that luxurious class in the churches would really suffer any genuine inconvenience for the sake of suffering humanity. Is charity the giving of worn-out garments? Is it a ten-dollar bill given to a paid visitor or secretary of some benevolent organization in the church? Shall the man never go and give his gift himself? Shall the woman never deny herself her reception or her party or her musicale, and go and actually touch, herself, the foul, sinful sore of diseased humanity as it festers in the great metropolis? Shall charity be conveniently and easily done through some organization? Is it possible to organize the affections so that love shall work disagreeable things by proxy? All this the Bishop asked as he plunged deeper into the sin and sorrow of that bitter winter. He was bearing his cross with joy. But he burned and fought within over the shifting of personal love by the many upon the hearts of the few. And still, silently, powerfully, resistlessly, the Holy Spirit was moving through the churches, even the aristocratic, wealthy, ease-loving members who shunned the terrors of the social problem as they would shun a contagious disease. Chapter Twenty-nine THE breakfast hour at the settlement was the one hour in the day when the whole family found a little breathing space to fellowship together. It was an hour of relaxation. There was a great deal of good-natured repartee and much real wit and enjoyable fun at this hour. The Bishop told his best stories. Dr. Bruce was at his best in anecdote. This company of disciples was healthily humorous in spite of the atmosphere of sorrow that constantly surrounded them. In fact, the Bishop often said the faculty of humor was as God-given as any other and in his own case it was the only safety valve he had for the tremendous pressure put upon him. This particular morning he was reading extracts from a morning paper for the benefit of the others. Suddenly he paused and his face instantly grew stern and sad. The rest looked up and a hush fell over the table. "Shot and killed while taking a lump of coal from a car! His family was freezing and he had had no work for six months. Six children and a wife all packed into a cabin with three rooms, on the West Side. One child wrapped in rags | prepare | How many times the word 'prepare' appears in the text? | 0 |
uttered an oath at the small amount of change he found. As he uttered it, the man with the pistol savagely said, "Jerk out his watch! We might as well get all we can out of the job!" The man with the stake was on the point of laying hold of the chain where there was a sound of footsteps coming towards him. "Get behind the fence! We haven't half searched him yet! Mind you keep shut now, if you don't want--" The man with the pistol made a significant gesture with it and, with his companion, pulled and pushed the Bishop down the alley and through a ragged, broken opening in the fence. The three stood still there in the shadow until the footsteps passed. "Now, then, have you got the watch?" asked the man with the pistol. "No, the chain is caught somewhere!" and the other man swore again. "Break it then!" "No, don't break it," the Bishop said, and it was the first time he had spoken. "The chain is the gift of a very dear friend. I should be sorry to have it broken." At the sound of the Bishop's voice the man with the pistol started as if he had been suddenly shot by his own weapon. With a quick movement of his other hand he turned the Bishop's head toward's what little light was shining from the alleyway, at the same time taking a step nearer. Then, to the amazement of his companion, he said roughly: "Leave the watch alone! We've got the money. That's enough!" "Enough! Fifty cents! You don't reckon--" Before the man with the stake could say another word he was confronted with the muzzle of the pistol turned from the Bishop's head towards his own. "Leave that watch be! And put back the money too. This is the Bishop we've held up--the Bishop--do you hear?" "And what of it! The President of the United States wouldn't be too good to hold up, if--" "I say, you put the money back, or in five seconds I'll blow a hole through your head that'll let in more sense than you have to spare now!" said the other. For a second the man with the stake seemed to hesitate at this strange turn in events, as if measuring his companion's intention. Then he hastily dropped the money back into the rifled pocket. "You can take your hands down, sir." The man lowered his weapon slowly, still keeping an eye on the other man, and speaking with rough respect. The Bishop slowly brought his arms to his side, and looked earnestly at the two men. In the dim light it was difficult to distinguish features. He was evidently free to go his way now, but he stood there making no movement. "You can go on. You needn't stay any longer on our account." The man who had acted as spokesman turned and sat down on a stone. The other man stood viciously digging his stake into the ground. "That's just what I am staying for," replied the Bishop. He sat down on a board that projected from the broken fence. "You must like our company. It is hard sometimes for people to tear themselves away from us," and the man standing up laughed coarsely. "Shut up!" exclaimed the other. "We're on the road to hell, though, that's sure enough. We need better company than ourselves and the devil." "If you would only allow me to be of any help," the Bishop spoke gently, even lovingly. The man on the stone stared at the Bishop through the darkness. After a moment of silence he spoke slowly like one who had finally decided upon a course he had at first rejected. "Do you remember ever seeing me before?" "No," said the Bishop. "The light is not very good and I have really not had a good look at you." "Do you know me now?" The man suddenly took off his hat and getting up from the stone walked over to the Bishop until they were near enough to touch each other. The man's hair was coal black except one spot on the top of his head about as large as the palm of the hand, which was white. The minute the Bishop saw that, he started. The memory of fifteen years ago began to stir in him. The man helped him. "Don't you remember one day back in '81 or '82 a man came to your house and told a story about his wife and child having been burned to death in a tenement fire in New York?" "Yes, I begin to remember now." The other man seemed to be interested. He ceased digging his stake in the ground and stood still listening. "Do you remember how you took me into your own house that night and spent all next day trying to find me a job? And how when you succeeded in getting me a place in a warehouse as foreman, I promised to quit drinking because you asked me to?" "I remember it now. I hope you have kept your promise." The man laughed savagely. Then he struck his hand against the fence with such sudden passion that he drew blood. "Kept it! I was drunk inside of a week! I've been drinking ever since. But I've never forgotten you nor your prayer. Do you remember the morning after I came to your house, after breakfast you had prayers and asked me to come in and sit with the rest? That got me! But my mother used to pray! I can see her now kneeling down by my bed when I was a lad. Father came in one night and kicked her while she was kneeling there by me. But I never forgot that prayer of yours that morning. You prayed for me just as mother used to, and you didn't seem to take 'count of the fact that I was ragged and tough-looking and more than half drunk when I rang your door bell. Oh, what a life I've lived! The saloon has housed me and homed me and made hell on earth for me. But that prayer stuck to me all the time. My promise not to drink was broken into a thousand pieces inside of two Sundays, and I lost the job you found for me and landed in a police station two days later, but I never forgot you nor your prayer. I don't know what good it has done me, but I never forgot it. And I won't do any harm to you nor let any one else. So you're free to go. That's why." The Bishop did not stir. Somewhere a church clock struck one. The man had put on his hat and gone back to his seat on the stone. The Bishop was thinking hard. "How long is it since you had work?" he asked, and the man standing up answered for the other. "More'n six months since either of us did anything to tell of; unless you count 'holding up' work. I call it pretty wearing kind of a job myself, especially when we put in a night like this and don't make nothin'." "Suppose I found good jobs for both of you? Would you quit this and begin all over?" "What's the use?" the man on the stone spoke sullenly. "I've reformed a hundred times. Every time I go down deeper. The devil's begun to foreclose on me already. It's too late." "No!" said the Bishop. And never before the most entranced audience had he felt the desire for souls burn up in him so strongly. All the time he sat there during the remarkable scene he prayed, "O Lord Jesus, give me the souls of these two for Thee! I am hungry for them. Give them to me!" "No!" the Bishop repeated. "What does God want of you two men? It doesn't so much matter what I want. But He wants just what I do in this case. You two men are of infinite value to Him." And then his wonderful memory came to his aid in an appeal such as no one on earth among men could make under such circumstances. He had remembered the man's name in spite of the wonderfully busy years that lay between his coming to the house and the present moment. "Burns," he said, and he yearned over the men with an unspeakable longing for them both, "if you and your friend here will go home with me tonight I will find you both places of honorable employment. I will believe in you and trust you. You are both comparatively young men. Why should God lose you? It is a great thing to win the love of the Great Father. It is a small thing that I should love you. But if you need to feel again that there is love in the world, you will believe me when I say, my brothers, that I love you, and in the name of Him who was crucified for our sins I cannot bear to see you miss the glory of the human life. Come, be men! Make another try for it, God helping you. No one but God and you and myself need ever know anything of this tonight. He has forgiven it the minute you ask Him to. You will find that true. Come! We'll fight it out together, you two and I. It's worth fighting for, everlasting life is. It was the sinner that Christ came to help. I'll do what I can for you. O God, give me the souls of these two men!" and he broke into a prayer to God that was a continuation of his appeal to the men. His pent-up feeling had no other outlet. Before he had prayed many moments Burns was sitting with his face buried in his hands, sobbing. Where were his mother's prayers now? They were adding to the power of the Bishop's. And the other man, harder, less moved, without a previous knowledge of the Bishop, leaned back against the fence, stolid at first. But as the prayer went on, he was moved by it. What force of the Holy Spirit swept over his dulled, brutal, coarsened life, nothing but the eternal records of the recording angel can ever disclose. But the same supernatural Presence that smote Paul on the road to Damascus, and poured through Henry Maxwell's church the morning he asked disciples to follow in Jesus' steps, and had again broken irresistibly over the Nazareth Avenue congregation, now manifested Himself in this foul corner of the mighty city and over the natures of these two sinful sunken men, apparently lost to all the pleadings of conscience and memory and God. The prayer seemed to red open the crust that for years had surrounded them and shut them off from divine communication. And they themselves were thoroughly startled by it. The Bishop ceased, and at first he himself did not realize what had happened. Neither did they. Burns still sat with his head bowed between his knees. The man leaning against the fence looked at the Bishop with a face in which new emotions of awe, repentance, astonishment and a broken gleam of joy struggled for expression. The Bishop rose. "Come, my brothers. God is good. You shall stay at the Settlement tonight, and I will make good my promise as to the work." The two men followed him in silence. When they reached the Settlement it was after two o'clock. He let them in and led them to a room. At the door he paused a moment. His tall, commanding figure stood in the doorway and his pale face was illuminated with the divine glory. "God bless you, my brothers!" he said, and leaving them his benediction he went away. Chapter Twenty-eight IT WAS the afternoon of that morning when Burns was installed in his new position as assistant janitor that he was cleaning off the front steps of the Settlement, when he paused a moment and stood up to look about him. The first thing he noticed was a beer sign just across the alley. He could almost touch it with his broom from where he stood. Over the street immediately opposite were two large saloons, and a little farther down were three more. Suddenly the door of the nearest saloon opened and a man came out. At the same time two more went in. A strong odor of beer floated up to Burns as he stood on the steps. He clutched his broom handle tightly and began to sweep again. He had one foot on the porch and another on the steps just below. He took another step down, still sweeping. The sweat stood on his forehead although the day was frosty and the air chill. The saloon door opened again and three or four men came out. A child went in with a pail, and came out a moment later with a quart of beer. The child went by on the sidewalk just below him, and the odor of the beer came up to him. He took another step down, still sweeping desperately. His fingers were purple as he clutched the handle of the broom. Then suddenly he pulled himself up one step and swept over the spot he had just cleaned. He then dragged himself by a tremendous effort back to the floor of the porch and went over into the corner of it farthest from the saloon and began to sweep there. "O God!" he cried, "if the Bishop would only come back!" The Bishop had gone out with Dr. Bruce somewhere, and there was no one about that he knew. He swept in the corner for two or three minutes. His face was drawn with the agony of his conflict. Gradually he edged out again towards the steps and began to go down them. He looked towards the sidewalk and saw that he had left one step unswept. The sight seemed to give him a reasonable excuse for going down there to finish his sweeping. He was on the sidewalk now, sweeping the last step, with his face towards the Settlement and his back turned partly on the saloon across the alley. He swept the step a dozen times. The sweat rolled over his face and dropped down at his feet. By degrees he felt that he was drawn over towards that end of the step nearest the saloon. He could smell the beer and rum now as the fumes rose around him. It was like the infernal sulphur of the lowest hell, and yet it dragged him as by a giant's hand nearer its source. He was down in the middle of the sidewalk now, still sweeping. He cleared the space in front of the Settlement and even went out into the gutter and swept that. He took off his hat and rubbed his sleeve over his face. His lips were pallid and his teeth chattered. He trembled all over like a palsied man and staggered back and forth as if he was already drunk. His soul shook within him. He had crossed over the little piece of stone flagging that measured the width of the alley, and now he stood in front of the saloon, looking at the sign, and staring into the window at the pile of whiskey and beer bottles arranged in a great pyramid inside. He moistened his lips with his tongue and took a step forward, looking around him stealthily. The door suddenly opened again and someone came out. Again the hot, penetrating smell of liquor swept out into the cold air, and he took another step towards the saloon door which had shut behind the customer. As he laid his fingers on the door handle, a tall figure came around the corner. It was the Bishop. He seized Burns by the arm and dragged him back upon the sidewalk. The frenzied man, now mad for a drink, shrieked out a curse and struck at his friend savagely. It is doubtful if he really knew at first who was snatching him away from his ruin. The blow fell upon the Bishop's face and cut a gash in his cheek. He never uttered a word. But over his face a look of majestic sorrow swept. He picked Burns up as if he had been a child and actually carried him up the steps and into the house. He put him down in the hall and then shut the door and put his back against it. Burns fell on his knees sobbing and praying. The Bishop stood there panting with his exertion, although Burns was a slightly-built man and had not been a great weight for a man of his strength to carry. He was moved with unspeakable pity. "Pray, Burns--pray as you never prayed before! Nothing else will save you!" "O God! Pray with me. Save me! Oh, save me from my hell!" cried Burns. And, the Bishop knelt by him in the hall and prayed as only he could pray. After that they rose and Burns went to his room. He came out of it that evening like a humble child. And the Bishop went his way older from that experience, bearing on his body the marks of the Lord Jesus. Truly he was learning something of what it means to walk in His steps. But the saloon! It stood there, and all the others lined the street like so many traps set for Burns. How long would the man be able to resist the smell of the damnable stuff? The Bishop went out on the porch. The air of the whole city seemed to be impregnated with the odor of beer. "How long, O Lord, how long?" he prayed. Dr. Bruce came out, and the two friends talked about Burns and his temptation. "Did you ever make any inquiries about the ownership of this property adjoining us?" the Bishop asked. "No, I haven't taken time for it. I will now if you think it would be worth while. But what can we do, Edward, against the saloon in this great city? It is as firmly established as the churches or politics. What power can ever remove it?" "God will do it in time, as He has removed slavery," was the grave reply. "Meanwhile I think we have a right to know who controls this saloon so near the Settlement." "I'll find out," said Dr. Bruce. Two days later he walked into the business office of one of the members of Nazareth Avenue Church and asked to see him a few moments. He was cordially received by his old parishioner, who welcomed him into his room and urged him to take all the time he wanted. "I called to see you about that property next the Settlement where the Bishop and myself now are, you know. I am going to speak plainly, because life is too short and too serious for us both to have any foolish hesitation about this matter. Clayton, do you think it is right to rent that property for a saloon?" Dr. Bruce's question was as direct and uncompromising as he had meant it to be. The effect of it on his old parishioner was instantaneous. The hot blood mounted to the face of the man who sat there beneath a picture of business activity in a great city. Then he grew pale, dropped his head on his hands, and when he raised it again Dr. Bruce was amazed to see a tear roll over his face. "Doctor, did you know that I took the pledge that morning with the others?" "Yes, I remember." "But you never knew how I have been tormented over my failure to keep it in this instance. That saloon property has been the temptation of the devil to me. It is the best paying investment at present that I have. And yet it was only a minute before you came in here that I was in an agony of remorse to think how I was letting a little earthly gain tempt me into a denial of the very Christ I had promised to follow. I knew well enough that He would never rent property for such a purpose. There is no need, Dr. Bruce, for you to say a word more." Clayton held out his hand and Dr. Bruce grasped it and shook it hard. After a little he went away. But it was a long time afterwards that he learned all the truth about the struggle that Clayton had known. It was only a part of the history that belonged to Nazareth Avenue Church since that memorable morning when the Holy Spirit sanctioned the Christ-like pledge. Not even the Bishop and Dr. Bruce, moving as they now did in the very presence itself of divine impulses, knew yet that over the whole sinful city the Spirit was brooding with mighty eagerness, waiting for the disciples to arise to the call of sacrifice and suffering, touching hearts long dull and cold, making business men and money-makers uneasy in their absorption by the one great struggle for more wealth, and stirring through the church as never in all the city's history the church had been moved. The Bishop and Dr. Bruce had already seen some wonderful things in their brief life at the Settlement. They were to see far greater soon, more astonishing revelations of the divine power than they had supposed possible in this age of the world. Within a month the saloon next the Settlement was closed. The saloon-keeper's lease had expired, and Clayton not only closed the property to the whiskey men, but offered the building to the Bishop and Dr. Bruce to use for the Settlement work, which had now grown so large that the building they had first rented was not sufficient for the different industries that were planned. One of the most important of these was the pure-food department suggested by Felicia. It was not a month after Clayton turned the saloon property over to the Settlement that Felicia found herself installed in the very room where souls had been lost, as head of the department not only of cooking but of a course of housekeeping for girls who wished to go out to service. She was now a resident of the Settlement, and found a home with Mrs. Bruce and the other young women from the city who were residents. Martha, the violinist, remained at the place where the Bishop had first discovered the two girls, and came over to the Settlement certain evenings to give lessons in music. "Felicia, tell us your plan in full now," said the Bishop one evening when, in a rare interval of rest from the great pressure of work, he was with Dr. Bruce, and Felicia had come in from the other building. "Well, I have long thought of the hired girl problem," said Felicia with an air of wisdom that made Mrs. Bruce smile as she looked at the enthusiastic, vital beauty of this young girl, transformed into a new creature by the promise she had made to live the Christ-like life. "And I have reached certain conclusions in regard to it that you men are not yet able to fathom, but Mrs. Bruce will understand me." "We acknowledge our infancy, Felicia. Go on," said the Bishop humbly. "Then this is what I propose to do. The old saloon building is large enough to arrange into a suite of rooms that will represent an ordinary house. My plan is to have it so arranged, and then teach housekeeping and cooking to girls who will afterwards go out to service. The course will be six months' long; in that time I will teach plain cooking, neatness, quickness, and a love of good work." "Hold on, Felicia!" the Bishop interrupted, "this is not an age of miracles!" "Then we will make it one," replied Felicia. "I know this seems like an impossibility, but I want to try it. I know a score of girls already who will take the course, and if we can once establish something like an esprit de corps among the girls themselves, I am sure it will be of great value to them. I know already that the pure food is working a revolution in many families." "Felicia, if you can accomplish half what you propose it will bless this community," said Mrs. Bruce. "I don't see how you can do it, but I say, God bless you, as you try." "So say we all!" cried Dr. Bruce and the Bishop, and Felicia plunged into the working out of her plan with the enthusiasm of her discipleship which every day grew more and more practical and serviceable. It must be said here that Felicia's plan succeeded beyond all expectations. She developed wonderful powers of persuasion, and taught her girls with astonishing rapidity to do all sorts of housework. In time, the graduates of Felicia's cooking school came to be prized by housekeepers all over the city. But that is anticipating our story. The history of the Settlement has never yet been written. When it is Felicia's part will be found of very great importance. The depth of winter found Chicago presenting, as every great city of the world presents to the eyes of Christendom the marked contrast between riches and poverty, between culture, refinement, luxury, ease, and ignorance, depravity, destitution and the bitter struggle for bread. It was a hard winter but a gay winter. Never had there been such a succession of parties, receptions, balls, dinners, banquets, fetes, gayeties. Never had the opera and the theatre been so crowded with fashionable audiences. Never had there been such a lavish display of jewels and fine dresses and equipages. And on the other hand, never had the deep want and suffering been so cruel, so sharp, so murderous. Never had the winds blown so chilling over the lake and through the thin shells of tenements in the neighborhood of the Settlement. Never had the pressure for food and fuel and clothes been so urgently thrust up against the people of the city in their most importunate and ghastly form. Night after night the Bishop and Dr. Bruce with their helpers went out and helped save men and women and children from the torture of physical privation. Vast quantities of food and clothing and large sums of money were donated by the churches, the charitable societies, the civic authorities and the benevolent associations. But the personal touch of the Christian disciple was very hard to secure for personal work. Where was the discipleship that was obeying the Master's command to go itself to the suffering and give itself with its gift in order to make the gift of value in time to come? The Bishop found his heart sing within him as he faced this fact more than any other. Men would give money who would not think of giving themselves. And the money they gave did not represent any real sacrifice because they did not miss it. They gave what was the easiest to give, what hurt them the least. Where did the sacrifice come in? Was this following Jesus? Was this going with Him all the way? He had been to members of his own aristocratic, splendidly wealthy congregations, and was appalled to find how few men and women of that luxurious class in the churches would really suffer any genuine inconvenience for the sake of suffering humanity. Is charity the giving of worn-out garments? Is it a ten-dollar bill given to a paid visitor or secretary of some benevolent organization in the church? Shall the man never go and give his gift himself? Shall the woman never deny herself her reception or her party or her musicale, and go and actually touch, herself, the foul, sinful sore of diseased humanity as it festers in the great metropolis? Shall charity be conveniently and easily done through some organization? Is it possible to organize the affections so that love shall work disagreeable things by proxy? All this the Bishop asked as he plunged deeper into the sin and sorrow of that bitter winter. He was bearing his cross with joy. But he burned and fought within over the shifting of personal love by the many upon the hearts of the few. And still, silently, powerfully, resistlessly, the Holy Spirit was moving through the churches, even the aristocratic, wealthy, ease-loving members who shunned the terrors of the social problem as they would shun a contagious disease. Chapter Twenty-nine THE breakfast hour at the settlement was the one hour in the day when the whole family found a little breathing space to fellowship together. It was an hour of relaxation. There was a great deal of good-natured repartee and much real wit and enjoyable fun at this hour. The Bishop told his best stories. Dr. Bruce was at his best in anecdote. This company of disciples was healthily humorous in spite of the atmosphere of sorrow that constantly surrounded them. In fact, the Bishop often said the faculty of humor was as God-given as any other and in his own case it was the only safety valve he had for the tremendous pressure put upon him. This particular morning he was reading extracts from a morning paper for the benefit of the others. Suddenly he paused and his face instantly grew stern and sad. The rest looked up and a hush fell over the table. "Shot and killed while taking a lump of coal from a car! His family was freezing and he had had no work for six months. Six children and a wife all packed into a cabin with three rooms, on the West Side. One child wrapped in rags | thing | How many times the word 'thing' appears in the text? | 3 |
uttered an oath at the small amount of change he found. As he uttered it, the man with the pistol savagely said, "Jerk out his watch! We might as well get all we can out of the job!" The man with the stake was on the point of laying hold of the chain where there was a sound of footsteps coming towards him. "Get behind the fence! We haven't half searched him yet! Mind you keep shut now, if you don't want--" The man with the pistol made a significant gesture with it and, with his companion, pulled and pushed the Bishop down the alley and through a ragged, broken opening in the fence. The three stood still there in the shadow until the footsteps passed. "Now, then, have you got the watch?" asked the man with the pistol. "No, the chain is caught somewhere!" and the other man swore again. "Break it then!" "No, don't break it," the Bishop said, and it was the first time he had spoken. "The chain is the gift of a very dear friend. I should be sorry to have it broken." At the sound of the Bishop's voice the man with the pistol started as if he had been suddenly shot by his own weapon. With a quick movement of his other hand he turned the Bishop's head toward's what little light was shining from the alleyway, at the same time taking a step nearer. Then, to the amazement of his companion, he said roughly: "Leave the watch alone! We've got the money. That's enough!" "Enough! Fifty cents! You don't reckon--" Before the man with the stake could say another word he was confronted with the muzzle of the pistol turned from the Bishop's head towards his own. "Leave that watch be! And put back the money too. This is the Bishop we've held up--the Bishop--do you hear?" "And what of it! The President of the United States wouldn't be too good to hold up, if--" "I say, you put the money back, or in five seconds I'll blow a hole through your head that'll let in more sense than you have to spare now!" said the other. For a second the man with the stake seemed to hesitate at this strange turn in events, as if measuring his companion's intention. Then he hastily dropped the money back into the rifled pocket. "You can take your hands down, sir." The man lowered his weapon slowly, still keeping an eye on the other man, and speaking with rough respect. The Bishop slowly brought his arms to his side, and looked earnestly at the two men. In the dim light it was difficult to distinguish features. He was evidently free to go his way now, but he stood there making no movement. "You can go on. You needn't stay any longer on our account." The man who had acted as spokesman turned and sat down on a stone. The other man stood viciously digging his stake into the ground. "That's just what I am staying for," replied the Bishop. He sat down on a board that projected from the broken fence. "You must like our company. It is hard sometimes for people to tear themselves away from us," and the man standing up laughed coarsely. "Shut up!" exclaimed the other. "We're on the road to hell, though, that's sure enough. We need better company than ourselves and the devil." "If you would only allow me to be of any help," the Bishop spoke gently, even lovingly. The man on the stone stared at the Bishop through the darkness. After a moment of silence he spoke slowly like one who had finally decided upon a course he had at first rejected. "Do you remember ever seeing me before?" "No," said the Bishop. "The light is not very good and I have really not had a good look at you." "Do you know me now?" The man suddenly took off his hat and getting up from the stone walked over to the Bishop until they were near enough to touch each other. The man's hair was coal black except one spot on the top of his head about as large as the palm of the hand, which was white. The minute the Bishop saw that, he started. The memory of fifteen years ago began to stir in him. The man helped him. "Don't you remember one day back in '81 or '82 a man came to your house and told a story about his wife and child having been burned to death in a tenement fire in New York?" "Yes, I begin to remember now." The other man seemed to be interested. He ceased digging his stake in the ground and stood still listening. "Do you remember how you took me into your own house that night and spent all next day trying to find me a job? And how when you succeeded in getting me a place in a warehouse as foreman, I promised to quit drinking because you asked me to?" "I remember it now. I hope you have kept your promise." The man laughed savagely. Then he struck his hand against the fence with such sudden passion that he drew blood. "Kept it! I was drunk inside of a week! I've been drinking ever since. But I've never forgotten you nor your prayer. Do you remember the morning after I came to your house, after breakfast you had prayers and asked me to come in and sit with the rest? That got me! But my mother used to pray! I can see her now kneeling down by my bed when I was a lad. Father came in one night and kicked her while she was kneeling there by me. But I never forgot that prayer of yours that morning. You prayed for me just as mother used to, and you didn't seem to take 'count of the fact that I was ragged and tough-looking and more than half drunk when I rang your door bell. Oh, what a life I've lived! The saloon has housed me and homed me and made hell on earth for me. But that prayer stuck to me all the time. My promise not to drink was broken into a thousand pieces inside of two Sundays, and I lost the job you found for me and landed in a police station two days later, but I never forgot you nor your prayer. I don't know what good it has done me, but I never forgot it. And I won't do any harm to you nor let any one else. So you're free to go. That's why." The Bishop did not stir. Somewhere a church clock struck one. The man had put on his hat and gone back to his seat on the stone. The Bishop was thinking hard. "How long is it since you had work?" he asked, and the man standing up answered for the other. "More'n six months since either of us did anything to tell of; unless you count 'holding up' work. I call it pretty wearing kind of a job myself, especially when we put in a night like this and don't make nothin'." "Suppose I found good jobs for both of you? Would you quit this and begin all over?" "What's the use?" the man on the stone spoke sullenly. "I've reformed a hundred times. Every time I go down deeper. The devil's begun to foreclose on me already. It's too late." "No!" said the Bishop. And never before the most entranced audience had he felt the desire for souls burn up in him so strongly. All the time he sat there during the remarkable scene he prayed, "O Lord Jesus, give me the souls of these two for Thee! I am hungry for them. Give them to me!" "No!" the Bishop repeated. "What does God want of you two men? It doesn't so much matter what I want. But He wants just what I do in this case. You two men are of infinite value to Him." And then his wonderful memory came to his aid in an appeal such as no one on earth among men could make under such circumstances. He had remembered the man's name in spite of the wonderfully busy years that lay between his coming to the house and the present moment. "Burns," he said, and he yearned over the men with an unspeakable longing for them both, "if you and your friend here will go home with me tonight I will find you both places of honorable employment. I will believe in you and trust you. You are both comparatively young men. Why should God lose you? It is a great thing to win the love of the Great Father. It is a small thing that I should love you. But if you need to feel again that there is love in the world, you will believe me when I say, my brothers, that I love you, and in the name of Him who was crucified for our sins I cannot bear to see you miss the glory of the human life. Come, be men! Make another try for it, God helping you. No one but God and you and myself need ever know anything of this tonight. He has forgiven it the minute you ask Him to. You will find that true. Come! We'll fight it out together, you two and I. It's worth fighting for, everlasting life is. It was the sinner that Christ came to help. I'll do what I can for you. O God, give me the souls of these two men!" and he broke into a prayer to God that was a continuation of his appeal to the men. His pent-up feeling had no other outlet. Before he had prayed many moments Burns was sitting with his face buried in his hands, sobbing. Where were his mother's prayers now? They were adding to the power of the Bishop's. And the other man, harder, less moved, without a previous knowledge of the Bishop, leaned back against the fence, stolid at first. But as the prayer went on, he was moved by it. What force of the Holy Spirit swept over his dulled, brutal, coarsened life, nothing but the eternal records of the recording angel can ever disclose. But the same supernatural Presence that smote Paul on the road to Damascus, and poured through Henry Maxwell's church the morning he asked disciples to follow in Jesus' steps, and had again broken irresistibly over the Nazareth Avenue congregation, now manifested Himself in this foul corner of the mighty city and over the natures of these two sinful sunken men, apparently lost to all the pleadings of conscience and memory and God. The prayer seemed to red open the crust that for years had surrounded them and shut them off from divine communication. And they themselves were thoroughly startled by it. The Bishop ceased, and at first he himself did not realize what had happened. Neither did they. Burns still sat with his head bowed between his knees. The man leaning against the fence looked at the Bishop with a face in which new emotions of awe, repentance, astonishment and a broken gleam of joy struggled for expression. The Bishop rose. "Come, my brothers. God is good. You shall stay at the Settlement tonight, and I will make good my promise as to the work." The two men followed him in silence. When they reached the Settlement it was after two o'clock. He let them in and led them to a room. At the door he paused a moment. His tall, commanding figure stood in the doorway and his pale face was illuminated with the divine glory. "God bless you, my brothers!" he said, and leaving them his benediction he went away. Chapter Twenty-eight IT WAS the afternoon of that morning when Burns was installed in his new position as assistant janitor that he was cleaning off the front steps of the Settlement, when he paused a moment and stood up to look about him. The first thing he noticed was a beer sign just across the alley. He could almost touch it with his broom from where he stood. Over the street immediately opposite were two large saloons, and a little farther down were three more. Suddenly the door of the nearest saloon opened and a man came out. At the same time two more went in. A strong odor of beer floated up to Burns as he stood on the steps. He clutched his broom handle tightly and began to sweep again. He had one foot on the porch and another on the steps just below. He took another step down, still sweeping. The sweat stood on his forehead although the day was frosty and the air chill. The saloon door opened again and three or four men came out. A child went in with a pail, and came out a moment later with a quart of beer. The child went by on the sidewalk just below him, and the odor of the beer came up to him. He took another step down, still sweeping desperately. His fingers were purple as he clutched the handle of the broom. Then suddenly he pulled himself up one step and swept over the spot he had just cleaned. He then dragged himself by a tremendous effort back to the floor of the porch and went over into the corner of it farthest from the saloon and began to sweep there. "O God!" he cried, "if the Bishop would only come back!" The Bishop had gone out with Dr. Bruce somewhere, and there was no one about that he knew. He swept in the corner for two or three minutes. His face was drawn with the agony of his conflict. Gradually he edged out again towards the steps and began to go down them. He looked towards the sidewalk and saw that he had left one step unswept. The sight seemed to give him a reasonable excuse for going down there to finish his sweeping. He was on the sidewalk now, sweeping the last step, with his face towards the Settlement and his back turned partly on the saloon across the alley. He swept the step a dozen times. The sweat rolled over his face and dropped down at his feet. By degrees he felt that he was drawn over towards that end of the step nearest the saloon. He could smell the beer and rum now as the fumes rose around him. It was like the infernal sulphur of the lowest hell, and yet it dragged him as by a giant's hand nearer its source. He was down in the middle of the sidewalk now, still sweeping. He cleared the space in front of the Settlement and even went out into the gutter and swept that. He took off his hat and rubbed his sleeve over his face. His lips were pallid and his teeth chattered. He trembled all over like a palsied man and staggered back and forth as if he was already drunk. His soul shook within him. He had crossed over the little piece of stone flagging that measured the width of the alley, and now he stood in front of the saloon, looking at the sign, and staring into the window at the pile of whiskey and beer bottles arranged in a great pyramid inside. He moistened his lips with his tongue and took a step forward, looking around him stealthily. The door suddenly opened again and someone came out. Again the hot, penetrating smell of liquor swept out into the cold air, and he took another step towards the saloon door which had shut behind the customer. As he laid his fingers on the door handle, a tall figure came around the corner. It was the Bishop. He seized Burns by the arm and dragged him back upon the sidewalk. The frenzied man, now mad for a drink, shrieked out a curse and struck at his friend savagely. It is doubtful if he really knew at first who was snatching him away from his ruin. The blow fell upon the Bishop's face and cut a gash in his cheek. He never uttered a word. But over his face a look of majestic sorrow swept. He picked Burns up as if he had been a child and actually carried him up the steps and into the house. He put him down in the hall and then shut the door and put his back against it. Burns fell on his knees sobbing and praying. The Bishop stood there panting with his exertion, although Burns was a slightly-built man and had not been a great weight for a man of his strength to carry. He was moved with unspeakable pity. "Pray, Burns--pray as you never prayed before! Nothing else will save you!" "O God! Pray with me. Save me! Oh, save me from my hell!" cried Burns. And, the Bishop knelt by him in the hall and prayed as only he could pray. After that they rose and Burns went to his room. He came out of it that evening like a humble child. And the Bishop went his way older from that experience, bearing on his body the marks of the Lord Jesus. Truly he was learning something of what it means to walk in His steps. But the saloon! It stood there, and all the others lined the street like so many traps set for Burns. How long would the man be able to resist the smell of the damnable stuff? The Bishop went out on the porch. The air of the whole city seemed to be impregnated with the odor of beer. "How long, O Lord, how long?" he prayed. Dr. Bruce came out, and the two friends talked about Burns and his temptation. "Did you ever make any inquiries about the ownership of this property adjoining us?" the Bishop asked. "No, I haven't taken time for it. I will now if you think it would be worth while. But what can we do, Edward, against the saloon in this great city? It is as firmly established as the churches or politics. What power can ever remove it?" "God will do it in time, as He has removed slavery," was the grave reply. "Meanwhile I think we have a right to know who controls this saloon so near the Settlement." "I'll find out," said Dr. Bruce. Two days later he walked into the business office of one of the members of Nazareth Avenue Church and asked to see him a few moments. He was cordially received by his old parishioner, who welcomed him into his room and urged him to take all the time he wanted. "I called to see you about that property next the Settlement where the Bishop and myself now are, you know. I am going to speak plainly, because life is too short and too serious for us both to have any foolish hesitation about this matter. Clayton, do you think it is right to rent that property for a saloon?" Dr. Bruce's question was as direct and uncompromising as he had meant it to be. The effect of it on his old parishioner was instantaneous. The hot blood mounted to the face of the man who sat there beneath a picture of business activity in a great city. Then he grew pale, dropped his head on his hands, and when he raised it again Dr. Bruce was amazed to see a tear roll over his face. "Doctor, did you know that I took the pledge that morning with the others?" "Yes, I remember." "But you never knew how I have been tormented over my failure to keep it in this instance. That saloon property has been the temptation of the devil to me. It is the best paying investment at present that I have. And yet it was only a minute before you came in here that I was in an agony of remorse to think how I was letting a little earthly gain tempt me into a denial of the very Christ I had promised to follow. I knew well enough that He would never rent property for such a purpose. There is no need, Dr. Bruce, for you to say a word more." Clayton held out his hand and Dr. Bruce grasped it and shook it hard. After a little he went away. But it was a long time afterwards that he learned all the truth about the struggle that Clayton had known. It was only a part of the history that belonged to Nazareth Avenue Church since that memorable morning when the Holy Spirit sanctioned the Christ-like pledge. Not even the Bishop and Dr. Bruce, moving as they now did in the very presence itself of divine impulses, knew yet that over the whole sinful city the Spirit was brooding with mighty eagerness, waiting for the disciples to arise to the call of sacrifice and suffering, touching hearts long dull and cold, making business men and money-makers uneasy in their absorption by the one great struggle for more wealth, and stirring through the church as never in all the city's history the church had been moved. The Bishop and Dr. Bruce had already seen some wonderful things in their brief life at the Settlement. They were to see far greater soon, more astonishing revelations of the divine power than they had supposed possible in this age of the world. Within a month the saloon next the Settlement was closed. The saloon-keeper's lease had expired, and Clayton not only closed the property to the whiskey men, but offered the building to the Bishop and Dr. Bruce to use for the Settlement work, which had now grown so large that the building they had first rented was not sufficient for the different industries that were planned. One of the most important of these was the pure-food department suggested by Felicia. It was not a month after Clayton turned the saloon property over to the Settlement that Felicia found herself installed in the very room where souls had been lost, as head of the department not only of cooking but of a course of housekeeping for girls who wished to go out to service. She was now a resident of the Settlement, and found a home with Mrs. Bruce and the other young women from the city who were residents. Martha, the violinist, remained at the place where the Bishop had first discovered the two girls, and came over to the Settlement certain evenings to give lessons in music. "Felicia, tell us your plan in full now," said the Bishop one evening when, in a rare interval of rest from the great pressure of work, he was with Dr. Bruce, and Felicia had come in from the other building. "Well, I have long thought of the hired girl problem," said Felicia with an air of wisdom that made Mrs. Bruce smile as she looked at the enthusiastic, vital beauty of this young girl, transformed into a new creature by the promise she had made to live the Christ-like life. "And I have reached certain conclusions in regard to it that you men are not yet able to fathom, but Mrs. Bruce will understand me." "We acknowledge our infancy, Felicia. Go on," said the Bishop humbly. "Then this is what I propose to do. The old saloon building is large enough to arrange into a suite of rooms that will represent an ordinary house. My plan is to have it so arranged, and then teach housekeeping and cooking to girls who will afterwards go out to service. The course will be six months' long; in that time I will teach plain cooking, neatness, quickness, and a love of good work." "Hold on, Felicia!" the Bishop interrupted, "this is not an age of miracles!" "Then we will make it one," replied Felicia. "I know this seems like an impossibility, but I want to try it. I know a score of girls already who will take the course, and if we can once establish something like an esprit de corps among the girls themselves, I am sure it will be of great value to them. I know already that the pure food is working a revolution in many families." "Felicia, if you can accomplish half what you propose it will bless this community," said Mrs. Bruce. "I don't see how you can do it, but I say, God bless you, as you try." "So say we all!" cried Dr. Bruce and the Bishop, and Felicia plunged into the working out of her plan with the enthusiasm of her discipleship which every day grew more and more practical and serviceable. It must be said here that Felicia's plan succeeded beyond all expectations. She developed wonderful powers of persuasion, and taught her girls with astonishing rapidity to do all sorts of housework. In time, the graduates of Felicia's cooking school came to be prized by housekeepers all over the city. But that is anticipating our story. The history of the Settlement has never yet been written. When it is Felicia's part will be found of very great importance. The depth of winter found Chicago presenting, as every great city of the world presents to the eyes of Christendom the marked contrast between riches and poverty, between culture, refinement, luxury, ease, and ignorance, depravity, destitution and the bitter struggle for bread. It was a hard winter but a gay winter. Never had there been such a succession of parties, receptions, balls, dinners, banquets, fetes, gayeties. Never had the opera and the theatre been so crowded with fashionable audiences. Never had there been such a lavish display of jewels and fine dresses and equipages. And on the other hand, never had the deep want and suffering been so cruel, so sharp, so murderous. Never had the winds blown so chilling over the lake and through the thin shells of tenements in the neighborhood of the Settlement. Never had the pressure for food and fuel and clothes been so urgently thrust up against the people of the city in their most importunate and ghastly form. Night after night the Bishop and Dr. Bruce with their helpers went out and helped save men and women and children from the torture of physical privation. Vast quantities of food and clothing and large sums of money were donated by the churches, the charitable societies, the civic authorities and the benevolent associations. But the personal touch of the Christian disciple was very hard to secure for personal work. Where was the discipleship that was obeying the Master's command to go itself to the suffering and give itself with its gift in order to make the gift of value in time to come? The Bishop found his heart sing within him as he faced this fact more than any other. Men would give money who would not think of giving themselves. And the money they gave did not represent any real sacrifice because they did not miss it. They gave what was the easiest to give, what hurt them the least. Where did the sacrifice come in? Was this following Jesus? Was this going with Him all the way? He had been to members of his own aristocratic, splendidly wealthy congregations, and was appalled to find how few men and women of that luxurious class in the churches would really suffer any genuine inconvenience for the sake of suffering humanity. Is charity the giving of worn-out garments? Is it a ten-dollar bill given to a paid visitor or secretary of some benevolent organization in the church? Shall the man never go and give his gift himself? Shall the woman never deny herself her reception or her party or her musicale, and go and actually touch, herself, the foul, sinful sore of diseased humanity as it festers in the great metropolis? Shall charity be conveniently and easily done through some organization? Is it possible to organize the affections so that love shall work disagreeable things by proxy? All this the Bishop asked as he plunged deeper into the sin and sorrow of that bitter winter. He was bearing his cross with joy. But he burned and fought within over the shifting of personal love by the many upon the hearts of the few. And still, silently, powerfully, resistlessly, the Holy Spirit was moving through the churches, even the aristocratic, wealthy, ease-loving members who shunned the terrors of the social problem as they would shun a contagious disease. Chapter Twenty-nine THE breakfast hour at the settlement was the one hour in the day when the whole family found a little breathing space to fellowship together. It was an hour of relaxation. There was a great deal of good-natured repartee and much real wit and enjoyable fun at this hour. The Bishop told his best stories. Dr. Bruce was at his best in anecdote. This company of disciples was healthily humorous in spite of the atmosphere of sorrow that constantly surrounded them. In fact, the Bishop often said the faculty of humor was as God-given as any other and in his own case it was the only safety valve he had for the tremendous pressure put upon him. This particular morning he was reading extracts from a morning paper for the benefit of the others. Suddenly he paused and his face instantly grew stern and sad. The rest looked up and a hush fell over the table. "Shot and killed while taking a lump of coal from a car! His family was freezing and he had had no work for six months. Six children and a wife all packed into a cabin with three rooms, on the West Side. One child wrapped in rags | cast | How many times the word 'cast' appears in the text? | 0 |
uttered an oath at the small amount of change he found. As he uttered it, the man with the pistol savagely said, "Jerk out his watch! We might as well get all we can out of the job!" The man with the stake was on the point of laying hold of the chain where there was a sound of footsteps coming towards him. "Get behind the fence! We haven't half searched him yet! Mind you keep shut now, if you don't want--" The man with the pistol made a significant gesture with it and, with his companion, pulled and pushed the Bishop down the alley and through a ragged, broken opening in the fence. The three stood still there in the shadow until the footsteps passed. "Now, then, have you got the watch?" asked the man with the pistol. "No, the chain is caught somewhere!" and the other man swore again. "Break it then!" "No, don't break it," the Bishop said, and it was the first time he had spoken. "The chain is the gift of a very dear friend. I should be sorry to have it broken." At the sound of the Bishop's voice the man with the pistol started as if he had been suddenly shot by his own weapon. With a quick movement of his other hand he turned the Bishop's head toward's what little light was shining from the alleyway, at the same time taking a step nearer. Then, to the amazement of his companion, he said roughly: "Leave the watch alone! We've got the money. That's enough!" "Enough! Fifty cents! You don't reckon--" Before the man with the stake could say another word he was confronted with the muzzle of the pistol turned from the Bishop's head towards his own. "Leave that watch be! And put back the money too. This is the Bishop we've held up--the Bishop--do you hear?" "And what of it! The President of the United States wouldn't be too good to hold up, if--" "I say, you put the money back, or in five seconds I'll blow a hole through your head that'll let in more sense than you have to spare now!" said the other. For a second the man with the stake seemed to hesitate at this strange turn in events, as if measuring his companion's intention. Then he hastily dropped the money back into the rifled pocket. "You can take your hands down, sir." The man lowered his weapon slowly, still keeping an eye on the other man, and speaking with rough respect. The Bishop slowly brought his arms to his side, and looked earnestly at the two men. In the dim light it was difficult to distinguish features. He was evidently free to go his way now, but he stood there making no movement. "You can go on. You needn't stay any longer on our account." The man who had acted as spokesman turned and sat down on a stone. The other man stood viciously digging his stake into the ground. "That's just what I am staying for," replied the Bishop. He sat down on a board that projected from the broken fence. "You must like our company. It is hard sometimes for people to tear themselves away from us," and the man standing up laughed coarsely. "Shut up!" exclaimed the other. "We're on the road to hell, though, that's sure enough. We need better company than ourselves and the devil." "If you would only allow me to be of any help," the Bishop spoke gently, even lovingly. The man on the stone stared at the Bishop through the darkness. After a moment of silence he spoke slowly like one who had finally decided upon a course he had at first rejected. "Do you remember ever seeing me before?" "No," said the Bishop. "The light is not very good and I have really not had a good look at you." "Do you know me now?" The man suddenly took off his hat and getting up from the stone walked over to the Bishop until they were near enough to touch each other. The man's hair was coal black except one spot on the top of his head about as large as the palm of the hand, which was white. The minute the Bishop saw that, he started. The memory of fifteen years ago began to stir in him. The man helped him. "Don't you remember one day back in '81 or '82 a man came to your house and told a story about his wife and child having been burned to death in a tenement fire in New York?" "Yes, I begin to remember now." The other man seemed to be interested. He ceased digging his stake in the ground and stood still listening. "Do you remember how you took me into your own house that night and spent all next day trying to find me a job? And how when you succeeded in getting me a place in a warehouse as foreman, I promised to quit drinking because you asked me to?" "I remember it now. I hope you have kept your promise." The man laughed savagely. Then he struck his hand against the fence with such sudden passion that he drew blood. "Kept it! I was drunk inside of a week! I've been drinking ever since. But I've never forgotten you nor your prayer. Do you remember the morning after I came to your house, after breakfast you had prayers and asked me to come in and sit with the rest? That got me! But my mother used to pray! I can see her now kneeling down by my bed when I was a lad. Father came in one night and kicked her while she was kneeling there by me. But I never forgot that prayer of yours that morning. You prayed for me just as mother used to, and you didn't seem to take 'count of the fact that I was ragged and tough-looking and more than half drunk when I rang your door bell. Oh, what a life I've lived! The saloon has housed me and homed me and made hell on earth for me. But that prayer stuck to me all the time. My promise not to drink was broken into a thousand pieces inside of two Sundays, and I lost the job you found for me and landed in a police station two days later, but I never forgot you nor your prayer. I don't know what good it has done me, but I never forgot it. And I won't do any harm to you nor let any one else. So you're free to go. That's why." The Bishop did not stir. Somewhere a church clock struck one. The man had put on his hat and gone back to his seat on the stone. The Bishop was thinking hard. "How long is it since you had work?" he asked, and the man standing up answered for the other. "More'n six months since either of us did anything to tell of; unless you count 'holding up' work. I call it pretty wearing kind of a job myself, especially when we put in a night like this and don't make nothin'." "Suppose I found good jobs for both of you? Would you quit this and begin all over?" "What's the use?" the man on the stone spoke sullenly. "I've reformed a hundred times. Every time I go down deeper. The devil's begun to foreclose on me already. It's too late." "No!" said the Bishop. And never before the most entranced audience had he felt the desire for souls burn up in him so strongly. All the time he sat there during the remarkable scene he prayed, "O Lord Jesus, give me the souls of these two for Thee! I am hungry for them. Give them to me!" "No!" the Bishop repeated. "What does God want of you two men? It doesn't so much matter what I want. But He wants just what I do in this case. You two men are of infinite value to Him." And then his wonderful memory came to his aid in an appeal such as no one on earth among men could make under such circumstances. He had remembered the man's name in spite of the wonderfully busy years that lay between his coming to the house and the present moment. "Burns," he said, and he yearned over the men with an unspeakable longing for them both, "if you and your friend here will go home with me tonight I will find you both places of honorable employment. I will believe in you and trust you. You are both comparatively young men. Why should God lose you? It is a great thing to win the love of the Great Father. It is a small thing that I should love you. But if you need to feel again that there is love in the world, you will believe me when I say, my brothers, that I love you, and in the name of Him who was crucified for our sins I cannot bear to see you miss the glory of the human life. Come, be men! Make another try for it, God helping you. No one but God and you and myself need ever know anything of this tonight. He has forgiven it the minute you ask Him to. You will find that true. Come! We'll fight it out together, you two and I. It's worth fighting for, everlasting life is. It was the sinner that Christ came to help. I'll do what I can for you. O God, give me the souls of these two men!" and he broke into a prayer to God that was a continuation of his appeal to the men. His pent-up feeling had no other outlet. Before he had prayed many moments Burns was sitting with his face buried in his hands, sobbing. Where were his mother's prayers now? They were adding to the power of the Bishop's. And the other man, harder, less moved, without a previous knowledge of the Bishop, leaned back against the fence, stolid at first. But as the prayer went on, he was moved by it. What force of the Holy Spirit swept over his dulled, brutal, coarsened life, nothing but the eternal records of the recording angel can ever disclose. But the same supernatural Presence that smote Paul on the road to Damascus, and poured through Henry Maxwell's church the morning he asked disciples to follow in Jesus' steps, and had again broken irresistibly over the Nazareth Avenue congregation, now manifested Himself in this foul corner of the mighty city and over the natures of these two sinful sunken men, apparently lost to all the pleadings of conscience and memory and God. The prayer seemed to red open the crust that for years had surrounded them and shut them off from divine communication. And they themselves were thoroughly startled by it. The Bishop ceased, and at first he himself did not realize what had happened. Neither did they. Burns still sat with his head bowed between his knees. The man leaning against the fence looked at the Bishop with a face in which new emotions of awe, repentance, astonishment and a broken gleam of joy struggled for expression. The Bishop rose. "Come, my brothers. God is good. You shall stay at the Settlement tonight, and I will make good my promise as to the work." The two men followed him in silence. When they reached the Settlement it was after two o'clock. He let them in and led them to a room. At the door he paused a moment. His tall, commanding figure stood in the doorway and his pale face was illuminated with the divine glory. "God bless you, my brothers!" he said, and leaving them his benediction he went away. Chapter Twenty-eight IT WAS the afternoon of that morning when Burns was installed in his new position as assistant janitor that he was cleaning off the front steps of the Settlement, when he paused a moment and stood up to look about him. The first thing he noticed was a beer sign just across the alley. He could almost touch it with his broom from where he stood. Over the street immediately opposite were two large saloons, and a little farther down were three more. Suddenly the door of the nearest saloon opened and a man came out. At the same time two more went in. A strong odor of beer floated up to Burns as he stood on the steps. He clutched his broom handle tightly and began to sweep again. He had one foot on the porch and another on the steps just below. He took another step down, still sweeping. The sweat stood on his forehead although the day was frosty and the air chill. The saloon door opened again and three or four men came out. A child went in with a pail, and came out a moment later with a quart of beer. The child went by on the sidewalk just below him, and the odor of the beer came up to him. He took another step down, still sweeping desperately. His fingers were purple as he clutched the handle of the broom. Then suddenly he pulled himself up one step and swept over the spot he had just cleaned. He then dragged himself by a tremendous effort back to the floor of the porch and went over into the corner of it farthest from the saloon and began to sweep there. "O God!" he cried, "if the Bishop would only come back!" The Bishop had gone out with Dr. Bruce somewhere, and there was no one about that he knew. He swept in the corner for two or three minutes. His face was drawn with the agony of his conflict. Gradually he edged out again towards the steps and began to go down them. He looked towards the sidewalk and saw that he had left one step unswept. The sight seemed to give him a reasonable excuse for going down there to finish his sweeping. He was on the sidewalk now, sweeping the last step, with his face towards the Settlement and his back turned partly on the saloon across the alley. He swept the step a dozen times. The sweat rolled over his face and dropped down at his feet. By degrees he felt that he was drawn over towards that end of the step nearest the saloon. He could smell the beer and rum now as the fumes rose around him. It was like the infernal sulphur of the lowest hell, and yet it dragged him as by a giant's hand nearer its source. He was down in the middle of the sidewalk now, still sweeping. He cleared the space in front of the Settlement and even went out into the gutter and swept that. He took off his hat and rubbed his sleeve over his face. His lips were pallid and his teeth chattered. He trembled all over like a palsied man and staggered back and forth as if he was already drunk. His soul shook within him. He had crossed over the little piece of stone flagging that measured the width of the alley, and now he stood in front of the saloon, looking at the sign, and staring into the window at the pile of whiskey and beer bottles arranged in a great pyramid inside. He moistened his lips with his tongue and took a step forward, looking around him stealthily. The door suddenly opened again and someone came out. Again the hot, penetrating smell of liquor swept out into the cold air, and he took another step towards the saloon door which had shut behind the customer. As he laid his fingers on the door handle, a tall figure came around the corner. It was the Bishop. He seized Burns by the arm and dragged him back upon the sidewalk. The frenzied man, now mad for a drink, shrieked out a curse and struck at his friend savagely. It is doubtful if he really knew at first who was snatching him away from his ruin. The blow fell upon the Bishop's face and cut a gash in his cheek. He never uttered a word. But over his face a look of majestic sorrow swept. He picked Burns up as if he had been a child and actually carried him up the steps and into the house. He put him down in the hall and then shut the door and put his back against it. Burns fell on his knees sobbing and praying. The Bishop stood there panting with his exertion, although Burns was a slightly-built man and had not been a great weight for a man of his strength to carry. He was moved with unspeakable pity. "Pray, Burns--pray as you never prayed before! Nothing else will save you!" "O God! Pray with me. Save me! Oh, save me from my hell!" cried Burns. And, the Bishop knelt by him in the hall and prayed as only he could pray. After that they rose and Burns went to his room. He came out of it that evening like a humble child. And the Bishop went his way older from that experience, bearing on his body the marks of the Lord Jesus. Truly he was learning something of what it means to walk in His steps. But the saloon! It stood there, and all the others lined the street like so many traps set for Burns. How long would the man be able to resist the smell of the damnable stuff? The Bishop went out on the porch. The air of the whole city seemed to be impregnated with the odor of beer. "How long, O Lord, how long?" he prayed. Dr. Bruce came out, and the two friends talked about Burns and his temptation. "Did you ever make any inquiries about the ownership of this property adjoining us?" the Bishop asked. "No, I haven't taken time for it. I will now if you think it would be worth while. But what can we do, Edward, against the saloon in this great city? It is as firmly established as the churches or politics. What power can ever remove it?" "God will do it in time, as He has removed slavery," was the grave reply. "Meanwhile I think we have a right to know who controls this saloon so near the Settlement." "I'll find out," said Dr. Bruce. Two days later he walked into the business office of one of the members of Nazareth Avenue Church and asked to see him a few moments. He was cordially received by his old parishioner, who welcomed him into his room and urged him to take all the time he wanted. "I called to see you about that property next the Settlement where the Bishop and myself now are, you know. I am going to speak plainly, because life is too short and too serious for us both to have any foolish hesitation about this matter. Clayton, do you think it is right to rent that property for a saloon?" Dr. Bruce's question was as direct and uncompromising as he had meant it to be. The effect of it on his old parishioner was instantaneous. The hot blood mounted to the face of the man who sat there beneath a picture of business activity in a great city. Then he grew pale, dropped his head on his hands, and when he raised it again Dr. Bruce was amazed to see a tear roll over his face. "Doctor, did you know that I took the pledge that morning with the others?" "Yes, I remember." "But you never knew how I have been tormented over my failure to keep it in this instance. That saloon property has been the temptation of the devil to me. It is the best paying investment at present that I have. And yet it was only a minute before you came in here that I was in an agony of remorse to think how I was letting a little earthly gain tempt me into a denial of the very Christ I had promised to follow. I knew well enough that He would never rent property for such a purpose. There is no need, Dr. Bruce, for you to say a word more." Clayton held out his hand and Dr. Bruce grasped it and shook it hard. After a little he went away. But it was a long time afterwards that he learned all the truth about the struggle that Clayton had known. It was only a part of the history that belonged to Nazareth Avenue Church since that memorable morning when the Holy Spirit sanctioned the Christ-like pledge. Not even the Bishop and Dr. Bruce, moving as they now did in the very presence itself of divine impulses, knew yet that over the whole sinful city the Spirit was brooding with mighty eagerness, waiting for the disciples to arise to the call of sacrifice and suffering, touching hearts long dull and cold, making business men and money-makers uneasy in their absorption by the one great struggle for more wealth, and stirring through the church as never in all the city's history the church had been moved. The Bishop and Dr. Bruce had already seen some wonderful things in their brief life at the Settlement. They were to see far greater soon, more astonishing revelations of the divine power than they had supposed possible in this age of the world. Within a month the saloon next the Settlement was closed. The saloon-keeper's lease had expired, and Clayton not only closed the property to the whiskey men, but offered the building to the Bishop and Dr. Bruce to use for the Settlement work, which had now grown so large that the building they had first rented was not sufficient for the different industries that were planned. One of the most important of these was the pure-food department suggested by Felicia. It was not a month after Clayton turned the saloon property over to the Settlement that Felicia found herself installed in the very room where souls had been lost, as head of the department not only of cooking but of a course of housekeeping for girls who wished to go out to service. She was now a resident of the Settlement, and found a home with Mrs. Bruce and the other young women from the city who were residents. Martha, the violinist, remained at the place where the Bishop had first discovered the two girls, and came over to the Settlement certain evenings to give lessons in music. "Felicia, tell us your plan in full now," said the Bishop one evening when, in a rare interval of rest from the great pressure of work, he was with Dr. Bruce, and Felicia had come in from the other building. "Well, I have long thought of the hired girl problem," said Felicia with an air of wisdom that made Mrs. Bruce smile as she looked at the enthusiastic, vital beauty of this young girl, transformed into a new creature by the promise she had made to live the Christ-like life. "And I have reached certain conclusions in regard to it that you men are not yet able to fathom, but Mrs. Bruce will understand me." "We acknowledge our infancy, Felicia. Go on," said the Bishop humbly. "Then this is what I propose to do. The old saloon building is large enough to arrange into a suite of rooms that will represent an ordinary house. My plan is to have it so arranged, and then teach housekeeping and cooking to girls who will afterwards go out to service. The course will be six months' long; in that time I will teach plain cooking, neatness, quickness, and a love of good work." "Hold on, Felicia!" the Bishop interrupted, "this is not an age of miracles!" "Then we will make it one," replied Felicia. "I know this seems like an impossibility, but I want to try it. I know a score of girls already who will take the course, and if we can once establish something like an esprit de corps among the girls themselves, I am sure it will be of great value to them. I know already that the pure food is working a revolution in many families." "Felicia, if you can accomplish half what you propose it will bless this community," said Mrs. Bruce. "I don't see how you can do it, but I say, God bless you, as you try." "So say we all!" cried Dr. Bruce and the Bishop, and Felicia plunged into the working out of her plan with the enthusiasm of her discipleship which every day grew more and more practical and serviceable. It must be said here that Felicia's plan succeeded beyond all expectations. She developed wonderful powers of persuasion, and taught her girls with astonishing rapidity to do all sorts of housework. In time, the graduates of Felicia's cooking school came to be prized by housekeepers all over the city. But that is anticipating our story. The history of the Settlement has never yet been written. When it is Felicia's part will be found of very great importance. The depth of winter found Chicago presenting, as every great city of the world presents to the eyes of Christendom the marked contrast between riches and poverty, between culture, refinement, luxury, ease, and ignorance, depravity, destitution and the bitter struggle for bread. It was a hard winter but a gay winter. Never had there been such a succession of parties, receptions, balls, dinners, banquets, fetes, gayeties. Never had the opera and the theatre been so crowded with fashionable audiences. Never had there been such a lavish display of jewels and fine dresses and equipages. And on the other hand, never had the deep want and suffering been so cruel, so sharp, so murderous. Never had the winds blown so chilling over the lake and through the thin shells of tenements in the neighborhood of the Settlement. Never had the pressure for food and fuel and clothes been so urgently thrust up against the people of the city in their most importunate and ghastly form. Night after night the Bishop and Dr. Bruce with their helpers went out and helped save men and women and children from the torture of physical privation. Vast quantities of food and clothing and large sums of money were donated by the churches, the charitable societies, the civic authorities and the benevolent associations. But the personal touch of the Christian disciple was very hard to secure for personal work. Where was the discipleship that was obeying the Master's command to go itself to the suffering and give itself with its gift in order to make the gift of value in time to come? The Bishop found his heart sing within him as he faced this fact more than any other. Men would give money who would not think of giving themselves. And the money they gave did not represent any real sacrifice because they did not miss it. They gave what was the easiest to give, what hurt them the least. Where did the sacrifice come in? Was this following Jesus? Was this going with Him all the way? He had been to members of his own aristocratic, splendidly wealthy congregations, and was appalled to find how few men and women of that luxurious class in the churches would really suffer any genuine inconvenience for the sake of suffering humanity. Is charity the giving of worn-out garments? Is it a ten-dollar bill given to a paid visitor or secretary of some benevolent organization in the church? Shall the man never go and give his gift himself? Shall the woman never deny herself her reception or her party or her musicale, and go and actually touch, herself, the foul, sinful sore of diseased humanity as it festers in the great metropolis? Shall charity be conveniently and easily done through some organization? Is it possible to organize the affections so that love shall work disagreeable things by proxy? All this the Bishop asked as he plunged deeper into the sin and sorrow of that bitter winter. He was bearing his cross with joy. But he burned and fought within over the shifting of personal love by the many upon the hearts of the few. And still, silently, powerfully, resistlessly, the Holy Spirit was moving through the churches, even the aristocratic, wealthy, ease-loving members who shunned the terrors of the social problem as they would shun a contagious disease. Chapter Twenty-nine THE breakfast hour at the settlement was the one hour in the day when the whole family found a little breathing space to fellowship together. It was an hour of relaxation. There was a great deal of good-natured repartee and much real wit and enjoyable fun at this hour. The Bishop told his best stories. Dr. Bruce was at his best in anecdote. This company of disciples was healthily humorous in spite of the atmosphere of sorrow that constantly surrounded them. In fact, the Bishop often said the faculty of humor was as God-given as any other and in his own case it was the only safety valve he had for the tremendous pressure put upon him. This particular morning he was reading extracts from a morning paper for the benefit of the others. Suddenly he paused and his face instantly grew stern and sad. The rest looked up and a hush fell over the table. "Shot and killed while taking a lump of coal from a car! His family was freezing and he had had no work for six months. Six children and a wife all packed into a cabin with three rooms, on the West Side. One child wrapped in rags | sweep | How many times the word 'sweep' appears in the text? | 2 |
uttered an oath at the small amount of change he found. As he uttered it, the man with the pistol savagely said, "Jerk out his watch! We might as well get all we can out of the job!" The man with the stake was on the point of laying hold of the chain where there was a sound of footsteps coming towards him. "Get behind the fence! We haven't half searched him yet! Mind you keep shut now, if you don't want--" The man with the pistol made a significant gesture with it and, with his companion, pulled and pushed the Bishop down the alley and through a ragged, broken opening in the fence. The three stood still there in the shadow until the footsteps passed. "Now, then, have you got the watch?" asked the man with the pistol. "No, the chain is caught somewhere!" and the other man swore again. "Break it then!" "No, don't break it," the Bishop said, and it was the first time he had spoken. "The chain is the gift of a very dear friend. I should be sorry to have it broken." At the sound of the Bishop's voice the man with the pistol started as if he had been suddenly shot by his own weapon. With a quick movement of his other hand he turned the Bishop's head toward's what little light was shining from the alleyway, at the same time taking a step nearer. Then, to the amazement of his companion, he said roughly: "Leave the watch alone! We've got the money. That's enough!" "Enough! Fifty cents! You don't reckon--" Before the man with the stake could say another word he was confronted with the muzzle of the pistol turned from the Bishop's head towards his own. "Leave that watch be! And put back the money too. This is the Bishop we've held up--the Bishop--do you hear?" "And what of it! The President of the United States wouldn't be too good to hold up, if--" "I say, you put the money back, or in five seconds I'll blow a hole through your head that'll let in more sense than you have to spare now!" said the other. For a second the man with the stake seemed to hesitate at this strange turn in events, as if measuring his companion's intention. Then he hastily dropped the money back into the rifled pocket. "You can take your hands down, sir." The man lowered his weapon slowly, still keeping an eye on the other man, and speaking with rough respect. The Bishop slowly brought his arms to his side, and looked earnestly at the two men. In the dim light it was difficult to distinguish features. He was evidently free to go his way now, but he stood there making no movement. "You can go on. You needn't stay any longer on our account." The man who had acted as spokesman turned and sat down on a stone. The other man stood viciously digging his stake into the ground. "That's just what I am staying for," replied the Bishop. He sat down on a board that projected from the broken fence. "You must like our company. It is hard sometimes for people to tear themselves away from us," and the man standing up laughed coarsely. "Shut up!" exclaimed the other. "We're on the road to hell, though, that's sure enough. We need better company than ourselves and the devil." "If you would only allow me to be of any help," the Bishop spoke gently, even lovingly. The man on the stone stared at the Bishop through the darkness. After a moment of silence he spoke slowly like one who had finally decided upon a course he had at first rejected. "Do you remember ever seeing me before?" "No," said the Bishop. "The light is not very good and I have really not had a good look at you." "Do you know me now?" The man suddenly took off his hat and getting up from the stone walked over to the Bishop until they were near enough to touch each other. The man's hair was coal black except one spot on the top of his head about as large as the palm of the hand, which was white. The minute the Bishop saw that, he started. The memory of fifteen years ago began to stir in him. The man helped him. "Don't you remember one day back in '81 or '82 a man came to your house and told a story about his wife and child having been burned to death in a tenement fire in New York?" "Yes, I begin to remember now." The other man seemed to be interested. He ceased digging his stake in the ground and stood still listening. "Do you remember how you took me into your own house that night and spent all next day trying to find me a job? And how when you succeeded in getting me a place in a warehouse as foreman, I promised to quit drinking because you asked me to?" "I remember it now. I hope you have kept your promise." The man laughed savagely. Then he struck his hand against the fence with such sudden passion that he drew blood. "Kept it! I was drunk inside of a week! I've been drinking ever since. But I've never forgotten you nor your prayer. Do you remember the morning after I came to your house, after breakfast you had prayers and asked me to come in and sit with the rest? That got me! But my mother used to pray! I can see her now kneeling down by my bed when I was a lad. Father came in one night and kicked her while she was kneeling there by me. But I never forgot that prayer of yours that morning. You prayed for me just as mother used to, and you didn't seem to take 'count of the fact that I was ragged and tough-looking and more than half drunk when I rang your door bell. Oh, what a life I've lived! The saloon has housed me and homed me and made hell on earth for me. But that prayer stuck to me all the time. My promise not to drink was broken into a thousand pieces inside of two Sundays, and I lost the job you found for me and landed in a police station two days later, but I never forgot you nor your prayer. I don't know what good it has done me, but I never forgot it. And I won't do any harm to you nor let any one else. So you're free to go. That's why." The Bishop did not stir. Somewhere a church clock struck one. The man had put on his hat and gone back to his seat on the stone. The Bishop was thinking hard. "How long is it since you had work?" he asked, and the man standing up answered for the other. "More'n six months since either of us did anything to tell of; unless you count 'holding up' work. I call it pretty wearing kind of a job myself, especially when we put in a night like this and don't make nothin'." "Suppose I found good jobs for both of you? Would you quit this and begin all over?" "What's the use?" the man on the stone spoke sullenly. "I've reformed a hundred times. Every time I go down deeper. The devil's begun to foreclose on me already. It's too late." "No!" said the Bishop. And never before the most entranced audience had he felt the desire for souls burn up in him so strongly. All the time he sat there during the remarkable scene he prayed, "O Lord Jesus, give me the souls of these two for Thee! I am hungry for them. Give them to me!" "No!" the Bishop repeated. "What does God want of you two men? It doesn't so much matter what I want. But He wants just what I do in this case. You two men are of infinite value to Him." And then his wonderful memory came to his aid in an appeal such as no one on earth among men could make under such circumstances. He had remembered the man's name in spite of the wonderfully busy years that lay between his coming to the house and the present moment. "Burns," he said, and he yearned over the men with an unspeakable longing for them both, "if you and your friend here will go home with me tonight I will find you both places of honorable employment. I will believe in you and trust you. You are both comparatively young men. Why should God lose you? It is a great thing to win the love of the Great Father. It is a small thing that I should love you. But if you need to feel again that there is love in the world, you will believe me when I say, my brothers, that I love you, and in the name of Him who was crucified for our sins I cannot bear to see you miss the glory of the human life. Come, be men! Make another try for it, God helping you. No one but God and you and myself need ever know anything of this tonight. He has forgiven it the minute you ask Him to. You will find that true. Come! We'll fight it out together, you two and I. It's worth fighting for, everlasting life is. It was the sinner that Christ came to help. I'll do what I can for you. O God, give me the souls of these two men!" and he broke into a prayer to God that was a continuation of his appeal to the men. His pent-up feeling had no other outlet. Before he had prayed many moments Burns was sitting with his face buried in his hands, sobbing. Where were his mother's prayers now? They were adding to the power of the Bishop's. And the other man, harder, less moved, without a previous knowledge of the Bishop, leaned back against the fence, stolid at first. But as the prayer went on, he was moved by it. What force of the Holy Spirit swept over his dulled, brutal, coarsened life, nothing but the eternal records of the recording angel can ever disclose. But the same supernatural Presence that smote Paul on the road to Damascus, and poured through Henry Maxwell's church the morning he asked disciples to follow in Jesus' steps, and had again broken irresistibly over the Nazareth Avenue congregation, now manifested Himself in this foul corner of the mighty city and over the natures of these two sinful sunken men, apparently lost to all the pleadings of conscience and memory and God. The prayer seemed to red open the crust that for years had surrounded them and shut them off from divine communication. And they themselves were thoroughly startled by it. The Bishop ceased, and at first he himself did not realize what had happened. Neither did they. Burns still sat with his head bowed between his knees. The man leaning against the fence looked at the Bishop with a face in which new emotions of awe, repentance, astonishment and a broken gleam of joy struggled for expression. The Bishop rose. "Come, my brothers. God is good. You shall stay at the Settlement tonight, and I will make good my promise as to the work." The two men followed him in silence. When they reached the Settlement it was after two o'clock. He let them in and led them to a room. At the door he paused a moment. His tall, commanding figure stood in the doorway and his pale face was illuminated with the divine glory. "God bless you, my brothers!" he said, and leaving them his benediction he went away. Chapter Twenty-eight IT WAS the afternoon of that morning when Burns was installed in his new position as assistant janitor that he was cleaning off the front steps of the Settlement, when he paused a moment and stood up to look about him. The first thing he noticed was a beer sign just across the alley. He could almost touch it with his broom from where he stood. Over the street immediately opposite were two large saloons, and a little farther down were three more. Suddenly the door of the nearest saloon opened and a man came out. At the same time two more went in. A strong odor of beer floated up to Burns as he stood on the steps. He clutched his broom handle tightly and began to sweep again. He had one foot on the porch and another on the steps just below. He took another step down, still sweeping. The sweat stood on his forehead although the day was frosty and the air chill. The saloon door opened again and three or four men came out. A child went in with a pail, and came out a moment later with a quart of beer. The child went by on the sidewalk just below him, and the odor of the beer came up to him. He took another step down, still sweeping desperately. His fingers were purple as he clutched the handle of the broom. Then suddenly he pulled himself up one step and swept over the spot he had just cleaned. He then dragged himself by a tremendous effort back to the floor of the porch and went over into the corner of it farthest from the saloon and began to sweep there. "O God!" he cried, "if the Bishop would only come back!" The Bishop had gone out with Dr. Bruce somewhere, and there was no one about that he knew. He swept in the corner for two or three minutes. His face was drawn with the agony of his conflict. Gradually he edged out again towards the steps and began to go down them. He looked towards the sidewalk and saw that he had left one step unswept. The sight seemed to give him a reasonable excuse for going down there to finish his sweeping. He was on the sidewalk now, sweeping the last step, with his face towards the Settlement and his back turned partly on the saloon across the alley. He swept the step a dozen times. The sweat rolled over his face and dropped down at his feet. By degrees he felt that he was drawn over towards that end of the step nearest the saloon. He could smell the beer and rum now as the fumes rose around him. It was like the infernal sulphur of the lowest hell, and yet it dragged him as by a giant's hand nearer its source. He was down in the middle of the sidewalk now, still sweeping. He cleared the space in front of the Settlement and even went out into the gutter and swept that. He took off his hat and rubbed his sleeve over his face. His lips were pallid and his teeth chattered. He trembled all over like a palsied man and staggered back and forth as if he was already drunk. His soul shook within him. He had crossed over the little piece of stone flagging that measured the width of the alley, and now he stood in front of the saloon, looking at the sign, and staring into the window at the pile of whiskey and beer bottles arranged in a great pyramid inside. He moistened his lips with his tongue and took a step forward, looking around him stealthily. The door suddenly opened again and someone came out. Again the hot, penetrating smell of liquor swept out into the cold air, and he took another step towards the saloon door which had shut behind the customer. As he laid his fingers on the door handle, a tall figure came around the corner. It was the Bishop. He seized Burns by the arm and dragged him back upon the sidewalk. The frenzied man, now mad for a drink, shrieked out a curse and struck at his friend savagely. It is doubtful if he really knew at first who was snatching him away from his ruin. The blow fell upon the Bishop's face and cut a gash in his cheek. He never uttered a word. But over his face a look of majestic sorrow swept. He picked Burns up as if he had been a child and actually carried him up the steps and into the house. He put him down in the hall and then shut the door and put his back against it. Burns fell on his knees sobbing and praying. The Bishop stood there panting with his exertion, although Burns was a slightly-built man and had not been a great weight for a man of his strength to carry. He was moved with unspeakable pity. "Pray, Burns--pray as you never prayed before! Nothing else will save you!" "O God! Pray with me. Save me! Oh, save me from my hell!" cried Burns. And, the Bishop knelt by him in the hall and prayed as only he could pray. After that they rose and Burns went to his room. He came out of it that evening like a humble child. And the Bishop went his way older from that experience, bearing on his body the marks of the Lord Jesus. Truly he was learning something of what it means to walk in His steps. But the saloon! It stood there, and all the others lined the street like so many traps set for Burns. How long would the man be able to resist the smell of the damnable stuff? The Bishop went out on the porch. The air of the whole city seemed to be impregnated with the odor of beer. "How long, O Lord, how long?" he prayed. Dr. Bruce came out, and the two friends talked about Burns and his temptation. "Did you ever make any inquiries about the ownership of this property adjoining us?" the Bishop asked. "No, I haven't taken time for it. I will now if you think it would be worth while. But what can we do, Edward, against the saloon in this great city? It is as firmly established as the churches or politics. What power can ever remove it?" "God will do it in time, as He has removed slavery," was the grave reply. "Meanwhile I think we have a right to know who controls this saloon so near the Settlement." "I'll find out," said Dr. Bruce. Two days later he walked into the business office of one of the members of Nazareth Avenue Church and asked to see him a few moments. He was cordially received by his old parishioner, who welcomed him into his room and urged him to take all the time he wanted. "I called to see you about that property next the Settlement where the Bishop and myself now are, you know. I am going to speak plainly, because life is too short and too serious for us both to have any foolish hesitation about this matter. Clayton, do you think it is right to rent that property for a saloon?" Dr. Bruce's question was as direct and uncompromising as he had meant it to be. The effect of it on his old parishioner was instantaneous. The hot blood mounted to the face of the man who sat there beneath a picture of business activity in a great city. Then he grew pale, dropped his head on his hands, and when he raised it again Dr. Bruce was amazed to see a tear roll over his face. "Doctor, did you know that I took the pledge that morning with the others?" "Yes, I remember." "But you never knew how I have been tormented over my failure to keep it in this instance. That saloon property has been the temptation of the devil to me. It is the best paying investment at present that I have. And yet it was only a minute before you came in here that I was in an agony of remorse to think how I was letting a little earthly gain tempt me into a denial of the very Christ I had promised to follow. I knew well enough that He would never rent property for such a purpose. There is no need, Dr. Bruce, for you to say a word more." Clayton held out his hand and Dr. Bruce grasped it and shook it hard. After a little he went away. But it was a long time afterwards that he learned all the truth about the struggle that Clayton had known. It was only a part of the history that belonged to Nazareth Avenue Church since that memorable morning when the Holy Spirit sanctioned the Christ-like pledge. Not even the Bishop and Dr. Bruce, moving as they now did in the very presence itself of divine impulses, knew yet that over the whole sinful city the Spirit was brooding with mighty eagerness, waiting for the disciples to arise to the call of sacrifice and suffering, touching hearts long dull and cold, making business men and money-makers uneasy in their absorption by the one great struggle for more wealth, and stirring through the church as never in all the city's history the church had been moved. The Bishop and Dr. Bruce had already seen some wonderful things in their brief life at the Settlement. They were to see far greater soon, more astonishing revelations of the divine power than they had supposed possible in this age of the world. Within a month the saloon next the Settlement was closed. The saloon-keeper's lease had expired, and Clayton not only closed the property to the whiskey men, but offered the building to the Bishop and Dr. Bruce to use for the Settlement work, which had now grown so large that the building they had first rented was not sufficient for the different industries that were planned. One of the most important of these was the pure-food department suggested by Felicia. It was not a month after Clayton turned the saloon property over to the Settlement that Felicia found herself installed in the very room where souls had been lost, as head of the department not only of cooking but of a course of housekeeping for girls who wished to go out to service. She was now a resident of the Settlement, and found a home with Mrs. Bruce and the other young women from the city who were residents. Martha, the violinist, remained at the place where the Bishop had first discovered the two girls, and came over to the Settlement certain evenings to give lessons in music. "Felicia, tell us your plan in full now," said the Bishop one evening when, in a rare interval of rest from the great pressure of work, he was with Dr. Bruce, and Felicia had come in from the other building. "Well, I have long thought of the hired girl problem," said Felicia with an air of wisdom that made Mrs. Bruce smile as she looked at the enthusiastic, vital beauty of this young girl, transformed into a new creature by the promise she had made to live the Christ-like life. "And I have reached certain conclusions in regard to it that you men are not yet able to fathom, but Mrs. Bruce will understand me." "We acknowledge our infancy, Felicia. Go on," said the Bishop humbly. "Then this is what I propose to do. The old saloon building is large enough to arrange into a suite of rooms that will represent an ordinary house. My plan is to have it so arranged, and then teach housekeeping and cooking to girls who will afterwards go out to service. The course will be six months' long; in that time I will teach plain cooking, neatness, quickness, and a love of good work." "Hold on, Felicia!" the Bishop interrupted, "this is not an age of miracles!" "Then we will make it one," replied Felicia. "I know this seems like an impossibility, but I want to try it. I know a score of girls already who will take the course, and if we can once establish something like an esprit de corps among the girls themselves, I am sure it will be of great value to them. I know already that the pure food is working a revolution in many families." "Felicia, if you can accomplish half what you propose it will bless this community," said Mrs. Bruce. "I don't see how you can do it, but I say, God bless you, as you try." "So say we all!" cried Dr. Bruce and the Bishop, and Felicia plunged into the working out of her plan with the enthusiasm of her discipleship which every day grew more and more practical and serviceable. It must be said here that Felicia's plan succeeded beyond all expectations. She developed wonderful powers of persuasion, and taught her girls with astonishing rapidity to do all sorts of housework. In time, the graduates of Felicia's cooking school came to be prized by housekeepers all over the city. But that is anticipating our story. The history of the Settlement has never yet been written. When it is Felicia's part will be found of very great importance. The depth of winter found Chicago presenting, as every great city of the world presents to the eyes of Christendom the marked contrast between riches and poverty, between culture, refinement, luxury, ease, and ignorance, depravity, destitution and the bitter struggle for bread. It was a hard winter but a gay winter. Never had there been such a succession of parties, receptions, balls, dinners, banquets, fetes, gayeties. Never had the opera and the theatre been so crowded with fashionable audiences. Never had there been such a lavish display of jewels and fine dresses and equipages. And on the other hand, never had the deep want and suffering been so cruel, so sharp, so murderous. Never had the winds blown so chilling over the lake and through the thin shells of tenements in the neighborhood of the Settlement. Never had the pressure for food and fuel and clothes been so urgently thrust up against the people of the city in their most importunate and ghastly form. Night after night the Bishop and Dr. Bruce with their helpers went out and helped save men and women and children from the torture of physical privation. Vast quantities of food and clothing and large sums of money were donated by the churches, the charitable societies, the civic authorities and the benevolent associations. But the personal touch of the Christian disciple was very hard to secure for personal work. Where was the discipleship that was obeying the Master's command to go itself to the suffering and give itself with its gift in order to make the gift of value in time to come? The Bishop found his heart sing within him as he faced this fact more than any other. Men would give money who would not think of giving themselves. And the money they gave did not represent any real sacrifice because they did not miss it. They gave what was the easiest to give, what hurt them the least. Where did the sacrifice come in? Was this following Jesus? Was this going with Him all the way? He had been to members of his own aristocratic, splendidly wealthy congregations, and was appalled to find how few men and women of that luxurious class in the churches would really suffer any genuine inconvenience for the sake of suffering humanity. Is charity the giving of worn-out garments? Is it a ten-dollar bill given to a paid visitor or secretary of some benevolent organization in the church? Shall the man never go and give his gift himself? Shall the woman never deny herself her reception or her party or her musicale, and go and actually touch, herself, the foul, sinful sore of diseased humanity as it festers in the great metropolis? Shall charity be conveniently and easily done through some organization? Is it possible to organize the affections so that love shall work disagreeable things by proxy? All this the Bishop asked as he plunged deeper into the sin and sorrow of that bitter winter. He was bearing his cross with joy. But he burned and fought within over the shifting of personal love by the many upon the hearts of the few. And still, silently, powerfully, resistlessly, the Holy Spirit was moving through the churches, even the aristocratic, wealthy, ease-loving members who shunned the terrors of the social problem as they would shun a contagious disease. Chapter Twenty-nine THE breakfast hour at the settlement was the one hour in the day when the whole family found a little breathing space to fellowship together. It was an hour of relaxation. There was a great deal of good-natured repartee and much real wit and enjoyable fun at this hour. The Bishop told his best stories. Dr. Bruce was at his best in anecdote. This company of disciples was healthily humorous in spite of the atmosphere of sorrow that constantly surrounded them. In fact, the Bishop often said the faculty of humor was as God-given as any other and in his own case it was the only safety valve he had for the tremendous pressure put upon him. This particular morning he was reading extracts from a morning paper for the benefit of the others. Suddenly he paused and his face instantly grew stern and sad. The rest looked up and a hush fell over the table. "Shot and killed while taking a lump of coal from a car! His family was freezing and he had had no work for six months. Six children and a wife all packed into a cabin with three rooms, on the West Side. One child wrapped in rags | surrender | How many times the word 'surrender' appears in the text? | 0 |
uttered an oath at the small amount of change he found. As he uttered it, the man with the pistol savagely said, "Jerk out his watch! We might as well get all we can out of the job!" The man with the stake was on the point of laying hold of the chain where there was a sound of footsteps coming towards him. "Get behind the fence! We haven't half searched him yet! Mind you keep shut now, if you don't want--" The man with the pistol made a significant gesture with it and, with his companion, pulled and pushed the Bishop down the alley and through a ragged, broken opening in the fence. The three stood still there in the shadow until the footsteps passed. "Now, then, have you got the watch?" asked the man with the pistol. "No, the chain is caught somewhere!" and the other man swore again. "Break it then!" "No, don't break it," the Bishop said, and it was the first time he had spoken. "The chain is the gift of a very dear friend. I should be sorry to have it broken." At the sound of the Bishop's voice the man with the pistol started as if he had been suddenly shot by his own weapon. With a quick movement of his other hand he turned the Bishop's head toward's what little light was shining from the alleyway, at the same time taking a step nearer. Then, to the amazement of his companion, he said roughly: "Leave the watch alone! We've got the money. That's enough!" "Enough! Fifty cents! You don't reckon--" Before the man with the stake could say another word he was confronted with the muzzle of the pistol turned from the Bishop's head towards his own. "Leave that watch be! And put back the money too. This is the Bishop we've held up--the Bishop--do you hear?" "And what of it! The President of the United States wouldn't be too good to hold up, if--" "I say, you put the money back, or in five seconds I'll blow a hole through your head that'll let in more sense than you have to spare now!" said the other. For a second the man with the stake seemed to hesitate at this strange turn in events, as if measuring his companion's intention. Then he hastily dropped the money back into the rifled pocket. "You can take your hands down, sir." The man lowered his weapon slowly, still keeping an eye on the other man, and speaking with rough respect. The Bishop slowly brought his arms to his side, and looked earnestly at the two men. In the dim light it was difficult to distinguish features. He was evidently free to go his way now, but he stood there making no movement. "You can go on. You needn't stay any longer on our account." The man who had acted as spokesman turned and sat down on a stone. The other man stood viciously digging his stake into the ground. "That's just what I am staying for," replied the Bishop. He sat down on a board that projected from the broken fence. "You must like our company. It is hard sometimes for people to tear themselves away from us," and the man standing up laughed coarsely. "Shut up!" exclaimed the other. "We're on the road to hell, though, that's sure enough. We need better company than ourselves and the devil." "If you would only allow me to be of any help," the Bishop spoke gently, even lovingly. The man on the stone stared at the Bishop through the darkness. After a moment of silence he spoke slowly like one who had finally decided upon a course he had at first rejected. "Do you remember ever seeing me before?" "No," said the Bishop. "The light is not very good and I have really not had a good look at you." "Do you know me now?" The man suddenly took off his hat and getting up from the stone walked over to the Bishop until they were near enough to touch each other. The man's hair was coal black except one spot on the top of his head about as large as the palm of the hand, which was white. The minute the Bishop saw that, he started. The memory of fifteen years ago began to stir in him. The man helped him. "Don't you remember one day back in '81 or '82 a man came to your house and told a story about his wife and child having been burned to death in a tenement fire in New York?" "Yes, I begin to remember now." The other man seemed to be interested. He ceased digging his stake in the ground and stood still listening. "Do you remember how you took me into your own house that night and spent all next day trying to find me a job? And how when you succeeded in getting me a place in a warehouse as foreman, I promised to quit drinking because you asked me to?" "I remember it now. I hope you have kept your promise." The man laughed savagely. Then he struck his hand against the fence with such sudden passion that he drew blood. "Kept it! I was drunk inside of a week! I've been drinking ever since. But I've never forgotten you nor your prayer. Do you remember the morning after I came to your house, after breakfast you had prayers and asked me to come in and sit with the rest? That got me! But my mother used to pray! I can see her now kneeling down by my bed when I was a lad. Father came in one night and kicked her while she was kneeling there by me. But I never forgot that prayer of yours that morning. You prayed for me just as mother used to, and you didn't seem to take 'count of the fact that I was ragged and tough-looking and more than half drunk when I rang your door bell. Oh, what a life I've lived! The saloon has housed me and homed me and made hell on earth for me. But that prayer stuck to me all the time. My promise not to drink was broken into a thousand pieces inside of two Sundays, and I lost the job you found for me and landed in a police station two days later, but I never forgot you nor your prayer. I don't know what good it has done me, but I never forgot it. And I won't do any harm to you nor let any one else. So you're free to go. That's why." The Bishop did not stir. Somewhere a church clock struck one. The man had put on his hat and gone back to his seat on the stone. The Bishop was thinking hard. "How long is it since you had work?" he asked, and the man standing up answered for the other. "More'n six months since either of us did anything to tell of; unless you count 'holding up' work. I call it pretty wearing kind of a job myself, especially when we put in a night like this and don't make nothin'." "Suppose I found good jobs for both of you? Would you quit this and begin all over?" "What's the use?" the man on the stone spoke sullenly. "I've reformed a hundred times. Every time I go down deeper. The devil's begun to foreclose on me already. It's too late." "No!" said the Bishop. And never before the most entranced audience had he felt the desire for souls burn up in him so strongly. All the time he sat there during the remarkable scene he prayed, "O Lord Jesus, give me the souls of these two for Thee! I am hungry for them. Give them to me!" "No!" the Bishop repeated. "What does God want of you two men? It doesn't so much matter what I want. But He wants just what I do in this case. You two men are of infinite value to Him." And then his wonderful memory came to his aid in an appeal such as no one on earth among men could make under such circumstances. He had remembered the man's name in spite of the wonderfully busy years that lay between his coming to the house and the present moment. "Burns," he said, and he yearned over the men with an unspeakable longing for them both, "if you and your friend here will go home with me tonight I will find you both places of honorable employment. I will believe in you and trust you. You are both comparatively young men. Why should God lose you? It is a great thing to win the love of the Great Father. It is a small thing that I should love you. But if you need to feel again that there is love in the world, you will believe me when I say, my brothers, that I love you, and in the name of Him who was crucified for our sins I cannot bear to see you miss the glory of the human life. Come, be men! Make another try for it, God helping you. No one but God and you and myself need ever know anything of this tonight. He has forgiven it the minute you ask Him to. You will find that true. Come! We'll fight it out together, you two and I. It's worth fighting for, everlasting life is. It was the sinner that Christ came to help. I'll do what I can for you. O God, give me the souls of these two men!" and he broke into a prayer to God that was a continuation of his appeal to the men. His pent-up feeling had no other outlet. Before he had prayed many moments Burns was sitting with his face buried in his hands, sobbing. Where were his mother's prayers now? They were adding to the power of the Bishop's. And the other man, harder, less moved, without a previous knowledge of the Bishop, leaned back against the fence, stolid at first. But as the prayer went on, he was moved by it. What force of the Holy Spirit swept over his dulled, brutal, coarsened life, nothing but the eternal records of the recording angel can ever disclose. But the same supernatural Presence that smote Paul on the road to Damascus, and poured through Henry Maxwell's church the morning he asked disciples to follow in Jesus' steps, and had again broken irresistibly over the Nazareth Avenue congregation, now manifested Himself in this foul corner of the mighty city and over the natures of these two sinful sunken men, apparently lost to all the pleadings of conscience and memory and God. The prayer seemed to red open the crust that for years had surrounded them and shut them off from divine communication. And they themselves were thoroughly startled by it. The Bishop ceased, and at first he himself did not realize what had happened. Neither did they. Burns still sat with his head bowed between his knees. The man leaning against the fence looked at the Bishop with a face in which new emotions of awe, repentance, astonishment and a broken gleam of joy struggled for expression. The Bishop rose. "Come, my brothers. God is good. You shall stay at the Settlement tonight, and I will make good my promise as to the work." The two men followed him in silence. When they reached the Settlement it was after two o'clock. He let them in and led them to a room. At the door he paused a moment. His tall, commanding figure stood in the doorway and his pale face was illuminated with the divine glory. "God bless you, my brothers!" he said, and leaving them his benediction he went away. Chapter Twenty-eight IT WAS the afternoon of that morning when Burns was installed in his new position as assistant janitor that he was cleaning off the front steps of the Settlement, when he paused a moment and stood up to look about him. The first thing he noticed was a beer sign just across the alley. He could almost touch it with his broom from where he stood. Over the street immediately opposite were two large saloons, and a little farther down were three more. Suddenly the door of the nearest saloon opened and a man came out. At the same time two more went in. A strong odor of beer floated up to Burns as he stood on the steps. He clutched his broom handle tightly and began to sweep again. He had one foot on the porch and another on the steps just below. He took another step down, still sweeping. The sweat stood on his forehead although the day was frosty and the air chill. The saloon door opened again and three or four men came out. A child went in with a pail, and came out a moment later with a quart of beer. The child went by on the sidewalk just below him, and the odor of the beer came up to him. He took another step down, still sweeping desperately. His fingers were purple as he clutched the handle of the broom. Then suddenly he pulled himself up one step and swept over the spot he had just cleaned. He then dragged himself by a tremendous effort back to the floor of the porch and went over into the corner of it farthest from the saloon and began to sweep there. "O God!" he cried, "if the Bishop would only come back!" The Bishop had gone out with Dr. Bruce somewhere, and there was no one about that he knew. He swept in the corner for two or three minutes. His face was drawn with the agony of his conflict. Gradually he edged out again towards the steps and began to go down them. He looked towards the sidewalk and saw that he had left one step unswept. The sight seemed to give him a reasonable excuse for going down there to finish his sweeping. He was on the sidewalk now, sweeping the last step, with his face towards the Settlement and his back turned partly on the saloon across the alley. He swept the step a dozen times. The sweat rolled over his face and dropped down at his feet. By degrees he felt that he was drawn over towards that end of the step nearest the saloon. He could smell the beer and rum now as the fumes rose around him. It was like the infernal sulphur of the lowest hell, and yet it dragged him as by a giant's hand nearer its source. He was down in the middle of the sidewalk now, still sweeping. He cleared the space in front of the Settlement and even went out into the gutter and swept that. He took off his hat and rubbed his sleeve over his face. His lips were pallid and his teeth chattered. He trembled all over like a palsied man and staggered back and forth as if he was already drunk. His soul shook within him. He had crossed over the little piece of stone flagging that measured the width of the alley, and now he stood in front of the saloon, looking at the sign, and staring into the window at the pile of whiskey and beer bottles arranged in a great pyramid inside. He moistened his lips with his tongue and took a step forward, looking around him stealthily. The door suddenly opened again and someone came out. Again the hot, penetrating smell of liquor swept out into the cold air, and he took another step towards the saloon door which had shut behind the customer. As he laid his fingers on the door handle, a tall figure came around the corner. It was the Bishop. He seized Burns by the arm and dragged him back upon the sidewalk. The frenzied man, now mad for a drink, shrieked out a curse and struck at his friend savagely. It is doubtful if he really knew at first who was snatching him away from his ruin. The blow fell upon the Bishop's face and cut a gash in his cheek. He never uttered a word. But over his face a look of majestic sorrow swept. He picked Burns up as if he had been a child and actually carried him up the steps and into the house. He put him down in the hall and then shut the door and put his back against it. Burns fell on his knees sobbing and praying. The Bishop stood there panting with his exertion, although Burns was a slightly-built man and had not been a great weight for a man of his strength to carry. He was moved with unspeakable pity. "Pray, Burns--pray as you never prayed before! Nothing else will save you!" "O God! Pray with me. Save me! Oh, save me from my hell!" cried Burns. And, the Bishop knelt by him in the hall and prayed as only he could pray. After that they rose and Burns went to his room. He came out of it that evening like a humble child. And the Bishop went his way older from that experience, bearing on his body the marks of the Lord Jesus. Truly he was learning something of what it means to walk in His steps. But the saloon! It stood there, and all the others lined the street like so many traps set for Burns. How long would the man be able to resist the smell of the damnable stuff? The Bishop went out on the porch. The air of the whole city seemed to be impregnated with the odor of beer. "How long, O Lord, how long?" he prayed. Dr. Bruce came out, and the two friends talked about Burns and his temptation. "Did you ever make any inquiries about the ownership of this property adjoining us?" the Bishop asked. "No, I haven't taken time for it. I will now if you think it would be worth while. But what can we do, Edward, against the saloon in this great city? It is as firmly established as the churches or politics. What power can ever remove it?" "God will do it in time, as He has removed slavery," was the grave reply. "Meanwhile I think we have a right to know who controls this saloon so near the Settlement." "I'll find out," said Dr. Bruce. Two days later he walked into the business office of one of the members of Nazareth Avenue Church and asked to see him a few moments. He was cordially received by his old parishioner, who welcomed him into his room and urged him to take all the time he wanted. "I called to see you about that property next the Settlement where the Bishop and myself now are, you know. I am going to speak plainly, because life is too short and too serious for us both to have any foolish hesitation about this matter. Clayton, do you think it is right to rent that property for a saloon?" Dr. Bruce's question was as direct and uncompromising as he had meant it to be. The effect of it on his old parishioner was instantaneous. The hot blood mounted to the face of the man who sat there beneath a picture of business activity in a great city. Then he grew pale, dropped his head on his hands, and when he raised it again Dr. Bruce was amazed to see a tear roll over his face. "Doctor, did you know that I took the pledge that morning with the others?" "Yes, I remember." "But you never knew how I have been tormented over my failure to keep it in this instance. That saloon property has been the temptation of the devil to me. It is the best paying investment at present that I have. And yet it was only a minute before you came in here that I was in an agony of remorse to think how I was letting a little earthly gain tempt me into a denial of the very Christ I had promised to follow. I knew well enough that He would never rent property for such a purpose. There is no need, Dr. Bruce, for you to say a word more." Clayton held out his hand and Dr. Bruce grasped it and shook it hard. After a little he went away. But it was a long time afterwards that he learned all the truth about the struggle that Clayton had known. It was only a part of the history that belonged to Nazareth Avenue Church since that memorable morning when the Holy Spirit sanctioned the Christ-like pledge. Not even the Bishop and Dr. Bruce, moving as they now did in the very presence itself of divine impulses, knew yet that over the whole sinful city the Spirit was brooding with mighty eagerness, waiting for the disciples to arise to the call of sacrifice and suffering, touching hearts long dull and cold, making business men and money-makers uneasy in their absorption by the one great struggle for more wealth, and stirring through the church as never in all the city's history the church had been moved. The Bishop and Dr. Bruce had already seen some wonderful things in their brief life at the Settlement. They were to see far greater soon, more astonishing revelations of the divine power than they had supposed possible in this age of the world. Within a month the saloon next the Settlement was closed. The saloon-keeper's lease had expired, and Clayton not only closed the property to the whiskey men, but offered the building to the Bishop and Dr. Bruce to use for the Settlement work, which had now grown so large that the building they had first rented was not sufficient for the different industries that were planned. One of the most important of these was the pure-food department suggested by Felicia. It was not a month after Clayton turned the saloon property over to the Settlement that Felicia found herself installed in the very room where souls had been lost, as head of the department not only of cooking but of a course of housekeeping for girls who wished to go out to service. She was now a resident of the Settlement, and found a home with Mrs. Bruce and the other young women from the city who were residents. Martha, the violinist, remained at the place where the Bishop had first discovered the two girls, and came over to the Settlement certain evenings to give lessons in music. "Felicia, tell us your plan in full now," said the Bishop one evening when, in a rare interval of rest from the great pressure of work, he was with Dr. Bruce, and Felicia had come in from the other building. "Well, I have long thought of the hired girl problem," said Felicia with an air of wisdom that made Mrs. Bruce smile as she looked at the enthusiastic, vital beauty of this young girl, transformed into a new creature by the promise she had made to live the Christ-like life. "And I have reached certain conclusions in regard to it that you men are not yet able to fathom, but Mrs. Bruce will understand me." "We acknowledge our infancy, Felicia. Go on," said the Bishop humbly. "Then this is what I propose to do. The old saloon building is large enough to arrange into a suite of rooms that will represent an ordinary house. My plan is to have it so arranged, and then teach housekeeping and cooking to girls who will afterwards go out to service. The course will be six months' long; in that time I will teach plain cooking, neatness, quickness, and a love of good work." "Hold on, Felicia!" the Bishop interrupted, "this is not an age of miracles!" "Then we will make it one," replied Felicia. "I know this seems like an impossibility, but I want to try it. I know a score of girls already who will take the course, and if we can once establish something like an esprit de corps among the girls themselves, I am sure it will be of great value to them. I know already that the pure food is working a revolution in many families." "Felicia, if you can accomplish half what you propose it will bless this community," said Mrs. Bruce. "I don't see how you can do it, but I say, God bless you, as you try." "So say we all!" cried Dr. Bruce and the Bishop, and Felicia plunged into the working out of her plan with the enthusiasm of her discipleship which every day grew more and more practical and serviceable. It must be said here that Felicia's plan succeeded beyond all expectations. She developed wonderful powers of persuasion, and taught her girls with astonishing rapidity to do all sorts of housework. In time, the graduates of Felicia's cooking school came to be prized by housekeepers all over the city. But that is anticipating our story. The history of the Settlement has never yet been written. When it is Felicia's part will be found of very great importance. The depth of winter found Chicago presenting, as every great city of the world presents to the eyes of Christendom the marked contrast between riches and poverty, between culture, refinement, luxury, ease, and ignorance, depravity, destitution and the bitter struggle for bread. It was a hard winter but a gay winter. Never had there been such a succession of parties, receptions, balls, dinners, banquets, fetes, gayeties. Never had the opera and the theatre been so crowded with fashionable audiences. Never had there been such a lavish display of jewels and fine dresses and equipages. And on the other hand, never had the deep want and suffering been so cruel, so sharp, so murderous. Never had the winds blown so chilling over the lake and through the thin shells of tenements in the neighborhood of the Settlement. Never had the pressure for food and fuel and clothes been so urgently thrust up against the people of the city in their most importunate and ghastly form. Night after night the Bishop and Dr. Bruce with their helpers went out and helped save men and women and children from the torture of physical privation. Vast quantities of food and clothing and large sums of money were donated by the churches, the charitable societies, the civic authorities and the benevolent associations. But the personal touch of the Christian disciple was very hard to secure for personal work. Where was the discipleship that was obeying the Master's command to go itself to the suffering and give itself with its gift in order to make the gift of value in time to come? The Bishop found his heart sing within him as he faced this fact more than any other. Men would give money who would not think of giving themselves. And the money they gave did not represent any real sacrifice because they did not miss it. They gave what was the easiest to give, what hurt them the least. Where did the sacrifice come in? Was this following Jesus? Was this going with Him all the way? He had been to members of his own aristocratic, splendidly wealthy congregations, and was appalled to find how few men and women of that luxurious class in the churches would really suffer any genuine inconvenience for the sake of suffering humanity. Is charity the giving of worn-out garments? Is it a ten-dollar bill given to a paid visitor or secretary of some benevolent organization in the church? Shall the man never go and give his gift himself? Shall the woman never deny herself her reception or her party or her musicale, and go and actually touch, herself, the foul, sinful sore of diseased humanity as it festers in the great metropolis? Shall charity be conveniently and easily done through some organization? Is it possible to organize the affections so that love shall work disagreeable things by proxy? All this the Bishop asked as he plunged deeper into the sin and sorrow of that bitter winter. He was bearing his cross with joy. But he burned and fought within over the shifting of personal love by the many upon the hearts of the few. And still, silently, powerfully, resistlessly, the Holy Spirit was moving through the churches, even the aristocratic, wealthy, ease-loving members who shunned the terrors of the social problem as they would shun a contagious disease. Chapter Twenty-nine THE breakfast hour at the settlement was the one hour in the day when the whole family found a little breathing space to fellowship together. It was an hour of relaxation. There was a great deal of good-natured repartee and much real wit and enjoyable fun at this hour. The Bishop told his best stories. Dr. Bruce was at his best in anecdote. This company of disciples was healthily humorous in spite of the atmosphere of sorrow that constantly surrounded them. In fact, the Bishop often said the faculty of humor was as God-given as any other and in his own case it was the only safety valve he had for the tremendous pressure put upon him. This particular morning he was reading extracts from a morning paper for the benefit of the others. Suddenly he paused and his face instantly grew stern and sad. The rest looked up and a hush fell over the table. "Shot and killed while taking a lump of coal from a car! His family was freezing and he had had no work for six months. Six children and a wife all packed into a cabin with three rooms, on the West Side. One child wrapped in rags | demanded | How many times the word 'demanded' appears in the text? | 0 |
uttered an oath at the small amount of change he found. As he uttered it, the man with the pistol savagely said, "Jerk out his watch! We might as well get all we can out of the job!" The man with the stake was on the point of laying hold of the chain where there was a sound of footsteps coming towards him. "Get behind the fence! We haven't half searched him yet! Mind you keep shut now, if you don't want--" The man with the pistol made a significant gesture with it and, with his companion, pulled and pushed the Bishop down the alley and through a ragged, broken opening in the fence. The three stood still there in the shadow until the footsteps passed. "Now, then, have you got the watch?" asked the man with the pistol. "No, the chain is caught somewhere!" and the other man swore again. "Break it then!" "No, don't break it," the Bishop said, and it was the first time he had spoken. "The chain is the gift of a very dear friend. I should be sorry to have it broken." At the sound of the Bishop's voice the man with the pistol started as if he had been suddenly shot by his own weapon. With a quick movement of his other hand he turned the Bishop's head toward's what little light was shining from the alleyway, at the same time taking a step nearer. Then, to the amazement of his companion, he said roughly: "Leave the watch alone! We've got the money. That's enough!" "Enough! Fifty cents! You don't reckon--" Before the man with the stake could say another word he was confronted with the muzzle of the pistol turned from the Bishop's head towards his own. "Leave that watch be! And put back the money too. This is the Bishop we've held up--the Bishop--do you hear?" "And what of it! The President of the United States wouldn't be too good to hold up, if--" "I say, you put the money back, or in five seconds I'll blow a hole through your head that'll let in more sense than you have to spare now!" said the other. For a second the man with the stake seemed to hesitate at this strange turn in events, as if measuring his companion's intention. Then he hastily dropped the money back into the rifled pocket. "You can take your hands down, sir." The man lowered his weapon slowly, still keeping an eye on the other man, and speaking with rough respect. The Bishop slowly brought his arms to his side, and looked earnestly at the two men. In the dim light it was difficult to distinguish features. He was evidently free to go his way now, but he stood there making no movement. "You can go on. You needn't stay any longer on our account." The man who had acted as spokesman turned and sat down on a stone. The other man stood viciously digging his stake into the ground. "That's just what I am staying for," replied the Bishop. He sat down on a board that projected from the broken fence. "You must like our company. It is hard sometimes for people to tear themselves away from us," and the man standing up laughed coarsely. "Shut up!" exclaimed the other. "We're on the road to hell, though, that's sure enough. We need better company than ourselves and the devil." "If you would only allow me to be of any help," the Bishop spoke gently, even lovingly. The man on the stone stared at the Bishop through the darkness. After a moment of silence he spoke slowly like one who had finally decided upon a course he had at first rejected. "Do you remember ever seeing me before?" "No," said the Bishop. "The light is not very good and I have really not had a good look at you." "Do you know me now?" The man suddenly took off his hat and getting up from the stone walked over to the Bishop until they were near enough to touch each other. The man's hair was coal black except one spot on the top of his head about as large as the palm of the hand, which was white. The minute the Bishop saw that, he started. The memory of fifteen years ago began to stir in him. The man helped him. "Don't you remember one day back in '81 or '82 a man came to your house and told a story about his wife and child having been burned to death in a tenement fire in New York?" "Yes, I begin to remember now." The other man seemed to be interested. He ceased digging his stake in the ground and stood still listening. "Do you remember how you took me into your own house that night and spent all next day trying to find me a job? And how when you succeeded in getting me a place in a warehouse as foreman, I promised to quit drinking because you asked me to?" "I remember it now. I hope you have kept your promise." The man laughed savagely. Then he struck his hand against the fence with such sudden passion that he drew blood. "Kept it! I was drunk inside of a week! I've been drinking ever since. But I've never forgotten you nor your prayer. Do you remember the morning after I came to your house, after breakfast you had prayers and asked me to come in and sit with the rest? That got me! But my mother used to pray! I can see her now kneeling down by my bed when I was a lad. Father came in one night and kicked her while she was kneeling there by me. But I never forgot that prayer of yours that morning. You prayed for me just as mother used to, and you didn't seem to take 'count of the fact that I was ragged and tough-looking and more than half drunk when I rang your door bell. Oh, what a life I've lived! The saloon has housed me and homed me and made hell on earth for me. But that prayer stuck to me all the time. My promise not to drink was broken into a thousand pieces inside of two Sundays, and I lost the job you found for me and landed in a police station two days later, but I never forgot you nor your prayer. I don't know what good it has done me, but I never forgot it. And I won't do any harm to you nor let any one else. So you're free to go. That's why." The Bishop did not stir. Somewhere a church clock struck one. The man had put on his hat and gone back to his seat on the stone. The Bishop was thinking hard. "How long is it since you had work?" he asked, and the man standing up answered for the other. "More'n six months since either of us did anything to tell of; unless you count 'holding up' work. I call it pretty wearing kind of a job myself, especially when we put in a night like this and don't make nothin'." "Suppose I found good jobs for both of you? Would you quit this and begin all over?" "What's the use?" the man on the stone spoke sullenly. "I've reformed a hundred times. Every time I go down deeper. The devil's begun to foreclose on me already. It's too late." "No!" said the Bishop. And never before the most entranced audience had he felt the desire for souls burn up in him so strongly. All the time he sat there during the remarkable scene he prayed, "O Lord Jesus, give me the souls of these two for Thee! I am hungry for them. Give them to me!" "No!" the Bishop repeated. "What does God want of you two men? It doesn't so much matter what I want. But He wants just what I do in this case. You two men are of infinite value to Him." And then his wonderful memory came to his aid in an appeal such as no one on earth among men could make under such circumstances. He had remembered the man's name in spite of the wonderfully busy years that lay between his coming to the house and the present moment. "Burns," he said, and he yearned over the men with an unspeakable longing for them both, "if you and your friend here will go home with me tonight I will find you both places of honorable employment. I will believe in you and trust you. You are both comparatively young men. Why should God lose you? It is a great thing to win the love of the Great Father. It is a small thing that I should love you. But if you need to feel again that there is love in the world, you will believe me when I say, my brothers, that I love you, and in the name of Him who was crucified for our sins I cannot bear to see you miss the glory of the human life. Come, be men! Make another try for it, God helping you. No one but God and you and myself need ever know anything of this tonight. He has forgiven it the minute you ask Him to. You will find that true. Come! We'll fight it out together, you two and I. It's worth fighting for, everlasting life is. It was the sinner that Christ came to help. I'll do what I can for you. O God, give me the souls of these two men!" and he broke into a prayer to God that was a continuation of his appeal to the men. His pent-up feeling had no other outlet. Before he had prayed many moments Burns was sitting with his face buried in his hands, sobbing. Where were his mother's prayers now? They were adding to the power of the Bishop's. And the other man, harder, less moved, without a previous knowledge of the Bishop, leaned back against the fence, stolid at first. But as the prayer went on, he was moved by it. What force of the Holy Spirit swept over his dulled, brutal, coarsened life, nothing but the eternal records of the recording angel can ever disclose. But the same supernatural Presence that smote Paul on the road to Damascus, and poured through Henry Maxwell's church the morning he asked disciples to follow in Jesus' steps, and had again broken irresistibly over the Nazareth Avenue congregation, now manifested Himself in this foul corner of the mighty city and over the natures of these two sinful sunken men, apparently lost to all the pleadings of conscience and memory and God. The prayer seemed to red open the crust that for years had surrounded them and shut them off from divine communication. And they themselves were thoroughly startled by it. The Bishop ceased, and at first he himself did not realize what had happened. Neither did they. Burns still sat with his head bowed between his knees. The man leaning against the fence looked at the Bishop with a face in which new emotions of awe, repentance, astonishment and a broken gleam of joy struggled for expression. The Bishop rose. "Come, my brothers. God is good. You shall stay at the Settlement tonight, and I will make good my promise as to the work." The two men followed him in silence. When they reached the Settlement it was after two o'clock. He let them in and led them to a room. At the door he paused a moment. His tall, commanding figure stood in the doorway and his pale face was illuminated with the divine glory. "God bless you, my brothers!" he said, and leaving them his benediction he went away. Chapter Twenty-eight IT WAS the afternoon of that morning when Burns was installed in his new position as assistant janitor that he was cleaning off the front steps of the Settlement, when he paused a moment and stood up to look about him. The first thing he noticed was a beer sign just across the alley. He could almost touch it with his broom from where he stood. Over the street immediately opposite were two large saloons, and a little farther down were three more. Suddenly the door of the nearest saloon opened and a man came out. At the same time two more went in. A strong odor of beer floated up to Burns as he stood on the steps. He clutched his broom handle tightly and began to sweep again. He had one foot on the porch and another on the steps just below. He took another step down, still sweeping. The sweat stood on his forehead although the day was frosty and the air chill. The saloon door opened again and three or four men came out. A child went in with a pail, and came out a moment later with a quart of beer. The child went by on the sidewalk just below him, and the odor of the beer came up to him. He took another step down, still sweeping desperately. His fingers were purple as he clutched the handle of the broom. Then suddenly he pulled himself up one step and swept over the spot he had just cleaned. He then dragged himself by a tremendous effort back to the floor of the porch and went over into the corner of it farthest from the saloon and began to sweep there. "O God!" he cried, "if the Bishop would only come back!" The Bishop had gone out with Dr. Bruce somewhere, and there was no one about that he knew. He swept in the corner for two or three minutes. His face was drawn with the agony of his conflict. Gradually he edged out again towards the steps and began to go down them. He looked towards the sidewalk and saw that he had left one step unswept. The sight seemed to give him a reasonable excuse for going down there to finish his sweeping. He was on the sidewalk now, sweeping the last step, with his face towards the Settlement and his back turned partly on the saloon across the alley. He swept the step a dozen times. The sweat rolled over his face and dropped down at his feet. By degrees he felt that he was drawn over towards that end of the step nearest the saloon. He could smell the beer and rum now as the fumes rose around him. It was like the infernal sulphur of the lowest hell, and yet it dragged him as by a giant's hand nearer its source. He was down in the middle of the sidewalk now, still sweeping. He cleared the space in front of the Settlement and even went out into the gutter and swept that. He took off his hat and rubbed his sleeve over his face. His lips were pallid and his teeth chattered. He trembled all over like a palsied man and staggered back and forth as if he was already drunk. His soul shook within him. He had crossed over the little piece of stone flagging that measured the width of the alley, and now he stood in front of the saloon, looking at the sign, and staring into the window at the pile of whiskey and beer bottles arranged in a great pyramid inside. He moistened his lips with his tongue and took a step forward, looking around him stealthily. The door suddenly opened again and someone came out. Again the hot, penetrating smell of liquor swept out into the cold air, and he took another step towards the saloon door which had shut behind the customer. As he laid his fingers on the door handle, a tall figure came around the corner. It was the Bishop. He seized Burns by the arm and dragged him back upon the sidewalk. The frenzied man, now mad for a drink, shrieked out a curse and struck at his friend savagely. It is doubtful if he really knew at first who was snatching him away from his ruin. The blow fell upon the Bishop's face and cut a gash in his cheek. He never uttered a word. But over his face a look of majestic sorrow swept. He picked Burns up as if he had been a child and actually carried him up the steps and into the house. He put him down in the hall and then shut the door and put his back against it. Burns fell on his knees sobbing and praying. The Bishop stood there panting with his exertion, although Burns was a slightly-built man and had not been a great weight for a man of his strength to carry. He was moved with unspeakable pity. "Pray, Burns--pray as you never prayed before! Nothing else will save you!" "O God! Pray with me. Save me! Oh, save me from my hell!" cried Burns. And, the Bishop knelt by him in the hall and prayed as only he could pray. After that they rose and Burns went to his room. He came out of it that evening like a humble child. And the Bishop went his way older from that experience, bearing on his body the marks of the Lord Jesus. Truly he was learning something of what it means to walk in His steps. But the saloon! It stood there, and all the others lined the street like so many traps set for Burns. How long would the man be able to resist the smell of the damnable stuff? The Bishop went out on the porch. The air of the whole city seemed to be impregnated with the odor of beer. "How long, O Lord, how long?" he prayed. Dr. Bruce came out, and the two friends talked about Burns and his temptation. "Did you ever make any inquiries about the ownership of this property adjoining us?" the Bishop asked. "No, I haven't taken time for it. I will now if you think it would be worth while. But what can we do, Edward, against the saloon in this great city? It is as firmly established as the churches or politics. What power can ever remove it?" "God will do it in time, as He has removed slavery," was the grave reply. "Meanwhile I think we have a right to know who controls this saloon so near the Settlement." "I'll find out," said Dr. Bruce. Two days later he walked into the business office of one of the members of Nazareth Avenue Church and asked to see him a few moments. He was cordially received by his old parishioner, who welcomed him into his room and urged him to take all the time he wanted. "I called to see you about that property next the Settlement where the Bishop and myself now are, you know. I am going to speak plainly, because life is too short and too serious for us both to have any foolish hesitation about this matter. Clayton, do you think it is right to rent that property for a saloon?" Dr. Bruce's question was as direct and uncompromising as he had meant it to be. The effect of it on his old parishioner was instantaneous. The hot blood mounted to the face of the man who sat there beneath a picture of business activity in a great city. Then he grew pale, dropped his head on his hands, and when he raised it again Dr. Bruce was amazed to see a tear roll over his face. "Doctor, did you know that I took the pledge that morning with the others?" "Yes, I remember." "But you never knew how I have been tormented over my failure to keep it in this instance. That saloon property has been the temptation of the devil to me. It is the best paying investment at present that I have. And yet it was only a minute before you came in here that I was in an agony of remorse to think how I was letting a little earthly gain tempt me into a denial of the very Christ I had promised to follow. I knew well enough that He would never rent property for such a purpose. There is no need, Dr. Bruce, for you to say a word more." Clayton held out his hand and Dr. Bruce grasped it and shook it hard. After a little he went away. But it was a long time afterwards that he learned all the truth about the struggle that Clayton had known. It was only a part of the history that belonged to Nazareth Avenue Church since that memorable morning when the Holy Spirit sanctioned the Christ-like pledge. Not even the Bishop and Dr. Bruce, moving as they now did in the very presence itself of divine impulses, knew yet that over the whole sinful city the Spirit was brooding with mighty eagerness, waiting for the disciples to arise to the call of sacrifice and suffering, touching hearts long dull and cold, making business men and money-makers uneasy in their absorption by the one great struggle for more wealth, and stirring through the church as never in all the city's history the church had been moved. The Bishop and Dr. Bruce had already seen some wonderful things in their brief life at the Settlement. They were to see far greater soon, more astonishing revelations of the divine power than they had supposed possible in this age of the world. Within a month the saloon next the Settlement was closed. The saloon-keeper's lease had expired, and Clayton not only closed the property to the whiskey men, but offered the building to the Bishop and Dr. Bruce to use for the Settlement work, which had now grown so large that the building they had first rented was not sufficient for the different industries that were planned. One of the most important of these was the pure-food department suggested by Felicia. It was not a month after Clayton turned the saloon property over to the Settlement that Felicia found herself installed in the very room where souls had been lost, as head of the department not only of cooking but of a course of housekeeping for girls who wished to go out to service. She was now a resident of the Settlement, and found a home with Mrs. Bruce and the other young women from the city who were residents. Martha, the violinist, remained at the place where the Bishop had first discovered the two girls, and came over to the Settlement certain evenings to give lessons in music. "Felicia, tell us your plan in full now," said the Bishop one evening when, in a rare interval of rest from the great pressure of work, he was with Dr. Bruce, and Felicia had come in from the other building. "Well, I have long thought of the hired girl problem," said Felicia with an air of wisdom that made Mrs. Bruce smile as she looked at the enthusiastic, vital beauty of this young girl, transformed into a new creature by the promise she had made to live the Christ-like life. "And I have reached certain conclusions in regard to it that you men are not yet able to fathom, but Mrs. Bruce will understand me." "We acknowledge our infancy, Felicia. Go on," said the Bishop humbly. "Then this is what I propose to do. The old saloon building is large enough to arrange into a suite of rooms that will represent an ordinary house. My plan is to have it so arranged, and then teach housekeeping and cooking to girls who will afterwards go out to service. The course will be six months' long; in that time I will teach plain cooking, neatness, quickness, and a love of good work." "Hold on, Felicia!" the Bishop interrupted, "this is not an age of miracles!" "Then we will make it one," replied Felicia. "I know this seems like an impossibility, but I want to try it. I know a score of girls already who will take the course, and if we can once establish something like an esprit de corps among the girls themselves, I am sure it will be of great value to them. I know already that the pure food is working a revolution in many families." "Felicia, if you can accomplish half what you propose it will bless this community," said Mrs. Bruce. "I don't see how you can do it, but I say, God bless you, as you try." "So say we all!" cried Dr. Bruce and the Bishop, and Felicia plunged into the working out of her plan with the enthusiasm of her discipleship which every day grew more and more practical and serviceable. It must be said here that Felicia's plan succeeded beyond all expectations. She developed wonderful powers of persuasion, and taught her girls with astonishing rapidity to do all sorts of housework. In time, the graduates of Felicia's cooking school came to be prized by housekeepers all over the city. But that is anticipating our story. The history of the Settlement has never yet been written. When it is Felicia's part will be found of very great importance. The depth of winter found Chicago presenting, as every great city of the world presents to the eyes of Christendom the marked contrast between riches and poverty, between culture, refinement, luxury, ease, and ignorance, depravity, destitution and the bitter struggle for bread. It was a hard winter but a gay winter. Never had there been such a succession of parties, receptions, balls, dinners, banquets, fetes, gayeties. Never had the opera and the theatre been so crowded with fashionable audiences. Never had there been such a lavish display of jewels and fine dresses and equipages. And on the other hand, never had the deep want and suffering been so cruel, so sharp, so murderous. Never had the winds blown so chilling over the lake and through the thin shells of tenements in the neighborhood of the Settlement. Never had the pressure for food and fuel and clothes been so urgently thrust up against the people of the city in their most importunate and ghastly form. Night after night the Bishop and Dr. Bruce with their helpers went out and helped save men and women and children from the torture of physical privation. Vast quantities of food and clothing and large sums of money were donated by the churches, the charitable societies, the civic authorities and the benevolent associations. But the personal touch of the Christian disciple was very hard to secure for personal work. Where was the discipleship that was obeying the Master's command to go itself to the suffering and give itself with its gift in order to make the gift of value in time to come? The Bishop found his heart sing within him as he faced this fact more than any other. Men would give money who would not think of giving themselves. And the money they gave did not represent any real sacrifice because they did not miss it. They gave what was the easiest to give, what hurt them the least. Where did the sacrifice come in? Was this following Jesus? Was this going with Him all the way? He had been to members of his own aristocratic, splendidly wealthy congregations, and was appalled to find how few men and women of that luxurious class in the churches would really suffer any genuine inconvenience for the sake of suffering humanity. Is charity the giving of worn-out garments? Is it a ten-dollar bill given to a paid visitor or secretary of some benevolent organization in the church? Shall the man never go and give his gift himself? Shall the woman never deny herself her reception or her party or her musicale, and go and actually touch, herself, the foul, sinful sore of diseased humanity as it festers in the great metropolis? Shall charity be conveniently and easily done through some organization? Is it possible to organize the affections so that love shall work disagreeable things by proxy? All this the Bishop asked as he plunged deeper into the sin and sorrow of that bitter winter. He was bearing his cross with joy. But he burned and fought within over the shifting of personal love by the many upon the hearts of the few. And still, silently, powerfully, resistlessly, the Holy Spirit was moving through the churches, even the aristocratic, wealthy, ease-loving members who shunned the terrors of the social problem as they would shun a contagious disease. Chapter Twenty-nine THE breakfast hour at the settlement was the one hour in the day when the whole family found a little breathing space to fellowship together. It was an hour of relaxation. There was a great deal of good-natured repartee and much real wit and enjoyable fun at this hour. The Bishop told his best stories. Dr. Bruce was at his best in anecdote. This company of disciples was healthily humorous in spite of the atmosphere of sorrow that constantly surrounded them. In fact, the Bishop often said the faculty of humor was as God-given as any other and in his own case it was the only safety valve he had for the tremendous pressure put upon him. This particular morning he was reading extracts from a morning paper for the benefit of the others. Suddenly he paused and his face instantly grew stern and sad. The rest looked up and a hush fell over the table. "Shot and killed while taking a lump of coal from a car! His family was freezing and he had had no work for six months. Six children and a wife all packed into a cabin with three rooms, on the West Side. One child wrapped in rags | smell | How many times the word 'smell' appears in the text? | 3 |
uttered an oath at the small amount of change he found. As he uttered it, the man with the pistol savagely said, "Jerk out his watch! We might as well get all we can out of the job!" The man with the stake was on the point of laying hold of the chain where there was a sound of footsteps coming towards him. "Get behind the fence! We haven't half searched him yet! Mind you keep shut now, if you don't want--" The man with the pistol made a significant gesture with it and, with his companion, pulled and pushed the Bishop down the alley and through a ragged, broken opening in the fence. The three stood still there in the shadow until the footsteps passed. "Now, then, have you got the watch?" asked the man with the pistol. "No, the chain is caught somewhere!" and the other man swore again. "Break it then!" "No, don't break it," the Bishop said, and it was the first time he had spoken. "The chain is the gift of a very dear friend. I should be sorry to have it broken." At the sound of the Bishop's voice the man with the pistol started as if he had been suddenly shot by his own weapon. With a quick movement of his other hand he turned the Bishop's head toward's what little light was shining from the alleyway, at the same time taking a step nearer. Then, to the amazement of his companion, he said roughly: "Leave the watch alone! We've got the money. That's enough!" "Enough! Fifty cents! You don't reckon--" Before the man with the stake could say another word he was confronted with the muzzle of the pistol turned from the Bishop's head towards his own. "Leave that watch be! And put back the money too. This is the Bishop we've held up--the Bishop--do you hear?" "And what of it! The President of the United States wouldn't be too good to hold up, if--" "I say, you put the money back, or in five seconds I'll blow a hole through your head that'll let in more sense than you have to spare now!" said the other. For a second the man with the stake seemed to hesitate at this strange turn in events, as if measuring his companion's intention. Then he hastily dropped the money back into the rifled pocket. "You can take your hands down, sir." The man lowered his weapon slowly, still keeping an eye on the other man, and speaking with rough respect. The Bishop slowly brought his arms to his side, and looked earnestly at the two men. In the dim light it was difficult to distinguish features. He was evidently free to go his way now, but he stood there making no movement. "You can go on. You needn't stay any longer on our account." The man who had acted as spokesman turned and sat down on a stone. The other man stood viciously digging his stake into the ground. "That's just what I am staying for," replied the Bishop. He sat down on a board that projected from the broken fence. "You must like our company. It is hard sometimes for people to tear themselves away from us," and the man standing up laughed coarsely. "Shut up!" exclaimed the other. "We're on the road to hell, though, that's sure enough. We need better company than ourselves and the devil." "If you would only allow me to be of any help," the Bishop spoke gently, even lovingly. The man on the stone stared at the Bishop through the darkness. After a moment of silence he spoke slowly like one who had finally decided upon a course he had at first rejected. "Do you remember ever seeing me before?" "No," said the Bishop. "The light is not very good and I have really not had a good look at you." "Do you know me now?" The man suddenly took off his hat and getting up from the stone walked over to the Bishop until they were near enough to touch each other. The man's hair was coal black except one spot on the top of his head about as large as the palm of the hand, which was white. The minute the Bishop saw that, he started. The memory of fifteen years ago began to stir in him. The man helped him. "Don't you remember one day back in '81 or '82 a man came to your house and told a story about his wife and child having been burned to death in a tenement fire in New York?" "Yes, I begin to remember now." The other man seemed to be interested. He ceased digging his stake in the ground and stood still listening. "Do you remember how you took me into your own house that night and spent all next day trying to find me a job? And how when you succeeded in getting me a place in a warehouse as foreman, I promised to quit drinking because you asked me to?" "I remember it now. I hope you have kept your promise." The man laughed savagely. Then he struck his hand against the fence with such sudden passion that he drew blood. "Kept it! I was drunk inside of a week! I've been drinking ever since. But I've never forgotten you nor your prayer. Do you remember the morning after I came to your house, after breakfast you had prayers and asked me to come in and sit with the rest? That got me! But my mother used to pray! I can see her now kneeling down by my bed when I was a lad. Father came in one night and kicked her while she was kneeling there by me. But I never forgot that prayer of yours that morning. You prayed for me just as mother used to, and you didn't seem to take 'count of the fact that I was ragged and tough-looking and more than half drunk when I rang your door bell. Oh, what a life I've lived! The saloon has housed me and homed me and made hell on earth for me. But that prayer stuck to me all the time. My promise not to drink was broken into a thousand pieces inside of two Sundays, and I lost the job you found for me and landed in a police station two days later, but I never forgot you nor your prayer. I don't know what good it has done me, but I never forgot it. And I won't do any harm to you nor let any one else. So you're free to go. That's why." The Bishop did not stir. Somewhere a church clock struck one. The man had put on his hat and gone back to his seat on the stone. The Bishop was thinking hard. "How long is it since you had work?" he asked, and the man standing up answered for the other. "More'n six months since either of us did anything to tell of; unless you count 'holding up' work. I call it pretty wearing kind of a job myself, especially when we put in a night like this and don't make nothin'." "Suppose I found good jobs for both of you? Would you quit this and begin all over?" "What's the use?" the man on the stone spoke sullenly. "I've reformed a hundred times. Every time I go down deeper. The devil's begun to foreclose on me already. It's too late." "No!" said the Bishop. And never before the most entranced audience had he felt the desire for souls burn up in him so strongly. All the time he sat there during the remarkable scene he prayed, "O Lord Jesus, give me the souls of these two for Thee! I am hungry for them. Give them to me!" "No!" the Bishop repeated. "What does God want of you two men? It doesn't so much matter what I want. But He wants just what I do in this case. You two men are of infinite value to Him." And then his wonderful memory came to his aid in an appeal such as no one on earth among men could make under such circumstances. He had remembered the man's name in spite of the wonderfully busy years that lay between his coming to the house and the present moment. "Burns," he said, and he yearned over the men with an unspeakable longing for them both, "if you and your friend here will go home with me tonight I will find you both places of honorable employment. I will believe in you and trust you. You are both comparatively young men. Why should God lose you? It is a great thing to win the love of the Great Father. It is a small thing that I should love you. But if you need to feel again that there is love in the world, you will believe me when I say, my brothers, that I love you, and in the name of Him who was crucified for our sins I cannot bear to see you miss the glory of the human life. Come, be men! Make another try for it, God helping you. No one but God and you and myself need ever know anything of this tonight. He has forgiven it the minute you ask Him to. You will find that true. Come! We'll fight it out together, you two and I. It's worth fighting for, everlasting life is. It was the sinner that Christ came to help. I'll do what I can for you. O God, give me the souls of these two men!" and he broke into a prayer to God that was a continuation of his appeal to the men. His pent-up feeling had no other outlet. Before he had prayed many moments Burns was sitting with his face buried in his hands, sobbing. Where were his mother's prayers now? They were adding to the power of the Bishop's. And the other man, harder, less moved, without a previous knowledge of the Bishop, leaned back against the fence, stolid at first. But as the prayer went on, he was moved by it. What force of the Holy Spirit swept over his dulled, brutal, coarsened life, nothing but the eternal records of the recording angel can ever disclose. But the same supernatural Presence that smote Paul on the road to Damascus, and poured through Henry Maxwell's church the morning he asked disciples to follow in Jesus' steps, and had again broken irresistibly over the Nazareth Avenue congregation, now manifested Himself in this foul corner of the mighty city and over the natures of these two sinful sunken men, apparently lost to all the pleadings of conscience and memory and God. The prayer seemed to red open the crust that for years had surrounded them and shut them off from divine communication. And they themselves were thoroughly startled by it. The Bishop ceased, and at first he himself did not realize what had happened. Neither did they. Burns still sat with his head bowed between his knees. The man leaning against the fence looked at the Bishop with a face in which new emotions of awe, repentance, astonishment and a broken gleam of joy struggled for expression. The Bishop rose. "Come, my brothers. God is good. You shall stay at the Settlement tonight, and I will make good my promise as to the work." The two men followed him in silence. When they reached the Settlement it was after two o'clock. He let them in and led them to a room. At the door he paused a moment. His tall, commanding figure stood in the doorway and his pale face was illuminated with the divine glory. "God bless you, my brothers!" he said, and leaving them his benediction he went away. Chapter Twenty-eight IT WAS the afternoon of that morning when Burns was installed in his new position as assistant janitor that he was cleaning off the front steps of the Settlement, when he paused a moment and stood up to look about him. The first thing he noticed was a beer sign just across the alley. He could almost touch it with his broom from where he stood. Over the street immediately opposite were two large saloons, and a little farther down were three more. Suddenly the door of the nearest saloon opened and a man came out. At the same time two more went in. A strong odor of beer floated up to Burns as he stood on the steps. He clutched his broom handle tightly and began to sweep again. He had one foot on the porch and another on the steps just below. He took another step down, still sweeping. The sweat stood on his forehead although the day was frosty and the air chill. The saloon door opened again and three or four men came out. A child went in with a pail, and came out a moment later with a quart of beer. The child went by on the sidewalk just below him, and the odor of the beer came up to him. He took another step down, still sweeping desperately. His fingers were purple as he clutched the handle of the broom. Then suddenly he pulled himself up one step and swept over the spot he had just cleaned. He then dragged himself by a tremendous effort back to the floor of the porch and went over into the corner of it farthest from the saloon and began to sweep there. "O God!" he cried, "if the Bishop would only come back!" The Bishop had gone out with Dr. Bruce somewhere, and there was no one about that he knew. He swept in the corner for two or three minutes. His face was drawn with the agony of his conflict. Gradually he edged out again towards the steps and began to go down them. He looked towards the sidewalk and saw that he had left one step unswept. The sight seemed to give him a reasonable excuse for going down there to finish his sweeping. He was on the sidewalk now, sweeping the last step, with his face towards the Settlement and his back turned partly on the saloon across the alley. He swept the step a dozen times. The sweat rolled over his face and dropped down at his feet. By degrees he felt that he was drawn over towards that end of the step nearest the saloon. He could smell the beer and rum now as the fumes rose around him. It was like the infernal sulphur of the lowest hell, and yet it dragged him as by a giant's hand nearer its source. He was down in the middle of the sidewalk now, still sweeping. He cleared the space in front of the Settlement and even went out into the gutter and swept that. He took off his hat and rubbed his sleeve over his face. His lips were pallid and his teeth chattered. He trembled all over like a palsied man and staggered back and forth as if he was already drunk. His soul shook within him. He had crossed over the little piece of stone flagging that measured the width of the alley, and now he stood in front of the saloon, looking at the sign, and staring into the window at the pile of whiskey and beer bottles arranged in a great pyramid inside. He moistened his lips with his tongue and took a step forward, looking around him stealthily. The door suddenly opened again and someone came out. Again the hot, penetrating smell of liquor swept out into the cold air, and he took another step towards the saloon door which had shut behind the customer. As he laid his fingers on the door handle, a tall figure came around the corner. It was the Bishop. He seized Burns by the arm and dragged him back upon the sidewalk. The frenzied man, now mad for a drink, shrieked out a curse and struck at his friend savagely. It is doubtful if he really knew at first who was snatching him away from his ruin. The blow fell upon the Bishop's face and cut a gash in his cheek. He never uttered a word. But over his face a look of majestic sorrow swept. He picked Burns up as if he had been a child and actually carried him up the steps and into the house. He put him down in the hall and then shut the door and put his back against it. Burns fell on his knees sobbing and praying. The Bishop stood there panting with his exertion, although Burns was a slightly-built man and had not been a great weight for a man of his strength to carry. He was moved with unspeakable pity. "Pray, Burns--pray as you never prayed before! Nothing else will save you!" "O God! Pray with me. Save me! Oh, save me from my hell!" cried Burns. And, the Bishop knelt by him in the hall and prayed as only he could pray. After that they rose and Burns went to his room. He came out of it that evening like a humble child. And the Bishop went his way older from that experience, bearing on his body the marks of the Lord Jesus. Truly he was learning something of what it means to walk in His steps. But the saloon! It stood there, and all the others lined the street like so many traps set for Burns. How long would the man be able to resist the smell of the damnable stuff? The Bishop went out on the porch. The air of the whole city seemed to be impregnated with the odor of beer. "How long, O Lord, how long?" he prayed. Dr. Bruce came out, and the two friends talked about Burns and his temptation. "Did you ever make any inquiries about the ownership of this property adjoining us?" the Bishop asked. "No, I haven't taken time for it. I will now if you think it would be worth while. But what can we do, Edward, against the saloon in this great city? It is as firmly established as the churches or politics. What power can ever remove it?" "God will do it in time, as He has removed slavery," was the grave reply. "Meanwhile I think we have a right to know who controls this saloon so near the Settlement." "I'll find out," said Dr. Bruce. Two days later he walked into the business office of one of the members of Nazareth Avenue Church and asked to see him a few moments. He was cordially received by his old parishioner, who welcomed him into his room and urged him to take all the time he wanted. "I called to see you about that property next the Settlement where the Bishop and myself now are, you know. I am going to speak plainly, because life is too short and too serious for us both to have any foolish hesitation about this matter. Clayton, do you think it is right to rent that property for a saloon?" Dr. Bruce's question was as direct and uncompromising as he had meant it to be. The effect of it on his old parishioner was instantaneous. The hot blood mounted to the face of the man who sat there beneath a picture of business activity in a great city. Then he grew pale, dropped his head on his hands, and when he raised it again Dr. Bruce was amazed to see a tear roll over his face. "Doctor, did you know that I took the pledge that morning with the others?" "Yes, I remember." "But you never knew how I have been tormented over my failure to keep it in this instance. That saloon property has been the temptation of the devil to me. It is the best paying investment at present that I have. And yet it was only a minute before you came in here that I was in an agony of remorse to think how I was letting a little earthly gain tempt me into a denial of the very Christ I had promised to follow. I knew well enough that He would never rent property for such a purpose. There is no need, Dr. Bruce, for you to say a word more." Clayton held out his hand and Dr. Bruce grasped it and shook it hard. After a little he went away. But it was a long time afterwards that he learned all the truth about the struggle that Clayton had known. It was only a part of the history that belonged to Nazareth Avenue Church since that memorable morning when the Holy Spirit sanctioned the Christ-like pledge. Not even the Bishop and Dr. Bruce, moving as they now did in the very presence itself of divine impulses, knew yet that over the whole sinful city the Spirit was brooding with mighty eagerness, waiting for the disciples to arise to the call of sacrifice and suffering, touching hearts long dull and cold, making business men and money-makers uneasy in their absorption by the one great struggle for more wealth, and stirring through the church as never in all the city's history the church had been moved. The Bishop and Dr. Bruce had already seen some wonderful things in their brief life at the Settlement. They were to see far greater soon, more astonishing revelations of the divine power than they had supposed possible in this age of the world. Within a month the saloon next the Settlement was closed. The saloon-keeper's lease had expired, and Clayton not only closed the property to the whiskey men, but offered the building to the Bishop and Dr. Bruce to use for the Settlement work, which had now grown so large that the building they had first rented was not sufficient for the different industries that were planned. One of the most important of these was the pure-food department suggested by Felicia. It was not a month after Clayton turned the saloon property over to the Settlement that Felicia found herself installed in the very room where souls had been lost, as head of the department not only of cooking but of a course of housekeeping for girls who wished to go out to service. She was now a resident of the Settlement, and found a home with Mrs. Bruce and the other young women from the city who were residents. Martha, the violinist, remained at the place where the Bishop had first discovered the two girls, and came over to the Settlement certain evenings to give lessons in music. "Felicia, tell us your plan in full now," said the Bishop one evening when, in a rare interval of rest from the great pressure of work, he was with Dr. Bruce, and Felicia had come in from the other building. "Well, I have long thought of the hired girl problem," said Felicia with an air of wisdom that made Mrs. Bruce smile as she looked at the enthusiastic, vital beauty of this young girl, transformed into a new creature by the promise she had made to live the Christ-like life. "And I have reached certain conclusions in regard to it that you men are not yet able to fathom, but Mrs. Bruce will understand me." "We acknowledge our infancy, Felicia. Go on," said the Bishop humbly. "Then this is what I propose to do. The old saloon building is large enough to arrange into a suite of rooms that will represent an ordinary house. My plan is to have it so arranged, and then teach housekeeping and cooking to girls who will afterwards go out to service. The course will be six months' long; in that time I will teach plain cooking, neatness, quickness, and a love of good work." "Hold on, Felicia!" the Bishop interrupted, "this is not an age of miracles!" "Then we will make it one," replied Felicia. "I know this seems like an impossibility, but I want to try it. I know a score of girls already who will take the course, and if we can once establish something like an esprit de corps among the girls themselves, I am sure it will be of great value to them. I know already that the pure food is working a revolution in many families." "Felicia, if you can accomplish half what you propose it will bless this community," said Mrs. Bruce. "I don't see how you can do it, but I say, God bless you, as you try." "So say we all!" cried Dr. Bruce and the Bishop, and Felicia plunged into the working out of her plan with the enthusiasm of her discipleship which every day grew more and more practical and serviceable. It must be said here that Felicia's plan succeeded beyond all expectations. She developed wonderful powers of persuasion, and taught her girls with astonishing rapidity to do all sorts of housework. In time, the graduates of Felicia's cooking school came to be prized by housekeepers all over the city. But that is anticipating our story. The history of the Settlement has never yet been written. When it is Felicia's part will be found of very great importance. The depth of winter found Chicago presenting, as every great city of the world presents to the eyes of Christendom the marked contrast between riches and poverty, between culture, refinement, luxury, ease, and ignorance, depravity, destitution and the bitter struggle for bread. It was a hard winter but a gay winter. Never had there been such a succession of parties, receptions, balls, dinners, banquets, fetes, gayeties. Never had the opera and the theatre been so crowded with fashionable audiences. Never had there been such a lavish display of jewels and fine dresses and equipages. And on the other hand, never had the deep want and suffering been so cruel, so sharp, so murderous. Never had the winds blown so chilling over the lake and through the thin shells of tenements in the neighborhood of the Settlement. Never had the pressure for food and fuel and clothes been so urgently thrust up against the people of the city in their most importunate and ghastly form. Night after night the Bishop and Dr. Bruce with their helpers went out and helped save men and women and children from the torture of physical privation. Vast quantities of food and clothing and large sums of money were donated by the churches, the charitable societies, the civic authorities and the benevolent associations. But the personal touch of the Christian disciple was very hard to secure for personal work. Where was the discipleship that was obeying the Master's command to go itself to the suffering and give itself with its gift in order to make the gift of value in time to come? The Bishop found his heart sing within him as he faced this fact more than any other. Men would give money who would not think of giving themselves. And the money they gave did not represent any real sacrifice because they did not miss it. They gave what was the easiest to give, what hurt them the least. Where did the sacrifice come in? Was this following Jesus? Was this going with Him all the way? He had been to members of his own aristocratic, splendidly wealthy congregations, and was appalled to find how few men and women of that luxurious class in the churches would really suffer any genuine inconvenience for the sake of suffering humanity. Is charity the giving of worn-out garments? Is it a ten-dollar bill given to a paid visitor or secretary of some benevolent organization in the church? Shall the man never go and give his gift himself? Shall the woman never deny herself her reception or her party or her musicale, and go and actually touch, herself, the foul, sinful sore of diseased humanity as it festers in the great metropolis? Shall charity be conveniently and easily done through some organization? Is it possible to organize the affections so that love shall work disagreeable things by proxy? All this the Bishop asked as he plunged deeper into the sin and sorrow of that bitter winter. He was bearing his cross with joy. But he burned and fought within over the shifting of personal love by the many upon the hearts of the few. And still, silently, powerfully, resistlessly, the Holy Spirit was moving through the churches, even the aristocratic, wealthy, ease-loving members who shunned the terrors of the social problem as they would shun a contagious disease. Chapter Twenty-nine THE breakfast hour at the settlement was the one hour in the day when the whole family found a little breathing space to fellowship together. It was an hour of relaxation. There was a great deal of good-natured repartee and much real wit and enjoyable fun at this hour. The Bishop told his best stories. Dr. Bruce was at his best in anecdote. This company of disciples was healthily humorous in spite of the atmosphere of sorrow that constantly surrounded them. In fact, the Bishop often said the faculty of humor was as God-given as any other and in his own case it was the only safety valve he had for the tremendous pressure put upon him. This particular morning he was reading extracts from a morning paper for the benefit of the others. Suddenly he paused and his face instantly grew stern and sad. The rest looked up and a hush fell over the table. "Shot and killed while taking a lump of coal from a car! His family was freezing and he had had no work for six months. Six children and a wife all packed into a cabin with three rooms, on the West Side. One child wrapped in rags | books | How many times the word 'books' appears in the text? | 0 |
uttered an oath at the small amount of change he found. As he uttered it, the man with the pistol savagely said, "Jerk out his watch! We might as well get all we can out of the job!" The man with the stake was on the point of laying hold of the chain where there was a sound of footsteps coming towards him. "Get behind the fence! We haven't half searched him yet! Mind you keep shut now, if you don't want--" The man with the pistol made a significant gesture with it and, with his companion, pulled and pushed the Bishop down the alley and through a ragged, broken opening in the fence. The three stood still there in the shadow until the footsteps passed. "Now, then, have you got the watch?" asked the man with the pistol. "No, the chain is caught somewhere!" and the other man swore again. "Break it then!" "No, don't break it," the Bishop said, and it was the first time he had spoken. "The chain is the gift of a very dear friend. I should be sorry to have it broken." At the sound of the Bishop's voice the man with the pistol started as if he had been suddenly shot by his own weapon. With a quick movement of his other hand he turned the Bishop's head toward's what little light was shining from the alleyway, at the same time taking a step nearer. Then, to the amazement of his companion, he said roughly: "Leave the watch alone! We've got the money. That's enough!" "Enough! Fifty cents! You don't reckon--" Before the man with the stake could say another word he was confronted with the muzzle of the pistol turned from the Bishop's head towards his own. "Leave that watch be! And put back the money too. This is the Bishop we've held up--the Bishop--do you hear?" "And what of it! The President of the United States wouldn't be too good to hold up, if--" "I say, you put the money back, or in five seconds I'll blow a hole through your head that'll let in more sense than you have to spare now!" said the other. For a second the man with the stake seemed to hesitate at this strange turn in events, as if measuring his companion's intention. Then he hastily dropped the money back into the rifled pocket. "You can take your hands down, sir." The man lowered his weapon slowly, still keeping an eye on the other man, and speaking with rough respect. The Bishop slowly brought his arms to his side, and looked earnestly at the two men. In the dim light it was difficult to distinguish features. He was evidently free to go his way now, but he stood there making no movement. "You can go on. You needn't stay any longer on our account." The man who had acted as spokesman turned and sat down on a stone. The other man stood viciously digging his stake into the ground. "That's just what I am staying for," replied the Bishop. He sat down on a board that projected from the broken fence. "You must like our company. It is hard sometimes for people to tear themselves away from us," and the man standing up laughed coarsely. "Shut up!" exclaimed the other. "We're on the road to hell, though, that's sure enough. We need better company than ourselves and the devil." "If you would only allow me to be of any help," the Bishop spoke gently, even lovingly. The man on the stone stared at the Bishop through the darkness. After a moment of silence he spoke slowly like one who had finally decided upon a course he had at first rejected. "Do you remember ever seeing me before?" "No," said the Bishop. "The light is not very good and I have really not had a good look at you." "Do you know me now?" The man suddenly took off his hat and getting up from the stone walked over to the Bishop until they were near enough to touch each other. The man's hair was coal black except one spot on the top of his head about as large as the palm of the hand, which was white. The minute the Bishop saw that, he started. The memory of fifteen years ago began to stir in him. The man helped him. "Don't you remember one day back in '81 or '82 a man came to your house and told a story about his wife and child having been burned to death in a tenement fire in New York?" "Yes, I begin to remember now." The other man seemed to be interested. He ceased digging his stake in the ground and stood still listening. "Do you remember how you took me into your own house that night and spent all next day trying to find me a job? And how when you succeeded in getting me a place in a warehouse as foreman, I promised to quit drinking because you asked me to?" "I remember it now. I hope you have kept your promise." The man laughed savagely. Then he struck his hand against the fence with such sudden passion that he drew blood. "Kept it! I was drunk inside of a week! I've been drinking ever since. But I've never forgotten you nor your prayer. Do you remember the morning after I came to your house, after breakfast you had prayers and asked me to come in and sit with the rest? That got me! But my mother used to pray! I can see her now kneeling down by my bed when I was a lad. Father came in one night and kicked her while she was kneeling there by me. But I never forgot that prayer of yours that morning. You prayed for me just as mother used to, and you didn't seem to take 'count of the fact that I was ragged and tough-looking and more than half drunk when I rang your door bell. Oh, what a life I've lived! The saloon has housed me and homed me and made hell on earth for me. But that prayer stuck to me all the time. My promise not to drink was broken into a thousand pieces inside of two Sundays, and I lost the job you found for me and landed in a police station two days later, but I never forgot you nor your prayer. I don't know what good it has done me, but I never forgot it. And I won't do any harm to you nor let any one else. So you're free to go. That's why." The Bishop did not stir. Somewhere a church clock struck one. The man had put on his hat and gone back to his seat on the stone. The Bishop was thinking hard. "How long is it since you had work?" he asked, and the man standing up answered for the other. "More'n six months since either of us did anything to tell of; unless you count 'holding up' work. I call it pretty wearing kind of a job myself, especially when we put in a night like this and don't make nothin'." "Suppose I found good jobs for both of you? Would you quit this and begin all over?" "What's the use?" the man on the stone spoke sullenly. "I've reformed a hundred times. Every time I go down deeper. The devil's begun to foreclose on me already. It's too late." "No!" said the Bishop. And never before the most entranced audience had he felt the desire for souls burn up in him so strongly. All the time he sat there during the remarkable scene he prayed, "O Lord Jesus, give me the souls of these two for Thee! I am hungry for them. Give them to me!" "No!" the Bishop repeated. "What does God want of you two men? It doesn't so much matter what I want. But He wants just what I do in this case. You two men are of infinite value to Him." And then his wonderful memory came to his aid in an appeal such as no one on earth among men could make under such circumstances. He had remembered the man's name in spite of the wonderfully busy years that lay between his coming to the house and the present moment. "Burns," he said, and he yearned over the men with an unspeakable longing for them both, "if you and your friend here will go home with me tonight I will find you both places of honorable employment. I will believe in you and trust you. You are both comparatively young men. Why should God lose you? It is a great thing to win the love of the Great Father. It is a small thing that I should love you. But if you need to feel again that there is love in the world, you will believe me when I say, my brothers, that I love you, and in the name of Him who was crucified for our sins I cannot bear to see you miss the glory of the human life. Come, be men! Make another try for it, God helping you. No one but God and you and myself need ever know anything of this tonight. He has forgiven it the minute you ask Him to. You will find that true. Come! We'll fight it out together, you two and I. It's worth fighting for, everlasting life is. It was the sinner that Christ came to help. I'll do what I can for you. O God, give me the souls of these two men!" and he broke into a prayer to God that was a continuation of his appeal to the men. His pent-up feeling had no other outlet. Before he had prayed many moments Burns was sitting with his face buried in his hands, sobbing. Where were his mother's prayers now? They were adding to the power of the Bishop's. And the other man, harder, less moved, without a previous knowledge of the Bishop, leaned back against the fence, stolid at first. But as the prayer went on, he was moved by it. What force of the Holy Spirit swept over his dulled, brutal, coarsened life, nothing but the eternal records of the recording angel can ever disclose. But the same supernatural Presence that smote Paul on the road to Damascus, and poured through Henry Maxwell's church the morning he asked disciples to follow in Jesus' steps, and had again broken irresistibly over the Nazareth Avenue congregation, now manifested Himself in this foul corner of the mighty city and over the natures of these two sinful sunken men, apparently lost to all the pleadings of conscience and memory and God. The prayer seemed to red open the crust that for years had surrounded them and shut them off from divine communication. And they themselves were thoroughly startled by it. The Bishop ceased, and at first he himself did not realize what had happened. Neither did they. Burns still sat with his head bowed between his knees. The man leaning against the fence looked at the Bishop with a face in which new emotions of awe, repentance, astonishment and a broken gleam of joy struggled for expression. The Bishop rose. "Come, my brothers. God is good. You shall stay at the Settlement tonight, and I will make good my promise as to the work." The two men followed him in silence. When they reached the Settlement it was after two o'clock. He let them in and led them to a room. At the door he paused a moment. His tall, commanding figure stood in the doorway and his pale face was illuminated with the divine glory. "God bless you, my brothers!" he said, and leaving them his benediction he went away. Chapter Twenty-eight IT WAS the afternoon of that morning when Burns was installed in his new position as assistant janitor that he was cleaning off the front steps of the Settlement, when he paused a moment and stood up to look about him. The first thing he noticed was a beer sign just across the alley. He could almost touch it with his broom from where he stood. Over the street immediately opposite were two large saloons, and a little farther down were three more. Suddenly the door of the nearest saloon opened and a man came out. At the same time two more went in. A strong odor of beer floated up to Burns as he stood on the steps. He clutched his broom handle tightly and began to sweep again. He had one foot on the porch and another on the steps just below. He took another step down, still sweeping. The sweat stood on his forehead although the day was frosty and the air chill. The saloon door opened again and three or four men came out. A child went in with a pail, and came out a moment later with a quart of beer. The child went by on the sidewalk just below him, and the odor of the beer came up to him. He took another step down, still sweeping desperately. His fingers were purple as he clutched the handle of the broom. Then suddenly he pulled himself up one step and swept over the spot he had just cleaned. He then dragged himself by a tremendous effort back to the floor of the porch and went over into the corner of it farthest from the saloon and began to sweep there. "O God!" he cried, "if the Bishop would only come back!" The Bishop had gone out with Dr. Bruce somewhere, and there was no one about that he knew. He swept in the corner for two or three minutes. His face was drawn with the agony of his conflict. Gradually he edged out again towards the steps and began to go down them. He looked towards the sidewalk and saw that he had left one step unswept. The sight seemed to give him a reasonable excuse for going down there to finish his sweeping. He was on the sidewalk now, sweeping the last step, with his face towards the Settlement and his back turned partly on the saloon across the alley. He swept the step a dozen times. The sweat rolled over his face and dropped down at his feet. By degrees he felt that he was drawn over towards that end of the step nearest the saloon. He could smell the beer and rum now as the fumes rose around him. It was like the infernal sulphur of the lowest hell, and yet it dragged him as by a giant's hand nearer its source. He was down in the middle of the sidewalk now, still sweeping. He cleared the space in front of the Settlement and even went out into the gutter and swept that. He took off his hat and rubbed his sleeve over his face. His lips were pallid and his teeth chattered. He trembled all over like a palsied man and staggered back and forth as if he was already drunk. His soul shook within him. He had crossed over the little piece of stone flagging that measured the width of the alley, and now he stood in front of the saloon, looking at the sign, and staring into the window at the pile of whiskey and beer bottles arranged in a great pyramid inside. He moistened his lips with his tongue and took a step forward, looking around him stealthily. The door suddenly opened again and someone came out. Again the hot, penetrating smell of liquor swept out into the cold air, and he took another step towards the saloon door which had shut behind the customer. As he laid his fingers on the door handle, a tall figure came around the corner. It was the Bishop. He seized Burns by the arm and dragged him back upon the sidewalk. The frenzied man, now mad for a drink, shrieked out a curse and struck at his friend savagely. It is doubtful if he really knew at first who was snatching him away from his ruin. The blow fell upon the Bishop's face and cut a gash in his cheek. He never uttered a word. But over his face a look of majestic sorrow swept. He picked Burns up as if he had been a child and actually carried him up the steps and into the house. He put him down in the hall and then shut the door and put his back against it. Burns fell on his knees sobbing and praying. The Bishop stood there panting with his exertion, although Burns was a slightly-built man and had not been a great weight for a man of his strength to carry. He was moved with unspeakable pity. "Pray, Burns--pray as you never prayed before! Nothing else will save you!" "O God! Pray with me. Save me! Oh, save me from my hell!" cried Burns. And, the Bishop knelt by him in the hall and prayed as only he could pray. After that they rose and Burns went to his room. He came out of it that evening like a humble child. And the Bishop went his way older from that experience, bearing on his body the marks of the Lord Jesus. Truly he was learning something of what it means to walk in His steps. But the saloon! It stood there, and all the others lined the street like so many traps set for Burns. How long would the man be able to resist the smell of the damnable stuff? The Bishop went out on the porch. The air of the whole city seemed to be impregnated with the odor of beer. "How long, O Lord, how long?" he prayed. Dr. Bruce came out, and the two friends talked about Burns and his temptation. "Did you ever make any inquiries about the ownership of this property adjoining us?" the Bishop asked. "No, I haven't taken time for it. I will now if you think it would be worth while. But what can we do, Edward, against the saloon in this great city? It is as firmly established as the churches or politics. What power can ever remove it?" "God will do it in time, as He has removed slavery," was the grave reply. "Meanwhile I think we have a right to know who controls this saloon so near the Settlement." "I'll find out," said Dr. Bruce. Two days later he walked into the business office of one of the members of Nazareth Avenue Church and asked to see him a few moments. He was cordially received by his old parishioner, who welcomed him into his room and urged him to take all the time he wanted. "I called to see you about that property next the Settlement where the Bishop and myself now are, you know. I am going to speak plainly, because life is too short and too serious for us both to have any foolish hesitation about this matter. Clayton, do you think it is right to rent that property for a saloon?" Dr. Bruce's question was as direct and uncompromising as he had meant it to be. The effect of it on his old parishioner was instantaneous. The hot blood mounted to the face of the man who sat there beneath a picture of business activity in a great city. Then he grew pale, dropped his head on his hands, and when he raised it again Dr. Bruce was amazed to see a tear roll over his face. "Doctor, did you know that I took the pledge that morning with the others?" "Yes, I remember." "But you never knew how I have been tormented over my failure to keep it in this instance. That saloon property has been the temptation of the devil to me. It is the best paying investment at present that I have. And yet it was only a minute before you came in here that I was in an agony of remorse to think how I was letting a little earthly gain tempt me into a denial of the very Christ I had promised to follow. I knew well enough that He would never rent property for such a purpose. There is no need, Dr. Bruce, for you to say a word more." Clayton held out his hand and Dr. Bruce grasped it and shook it hard. After a little he went away. But it was a long time afterwards that he learned all the truth about the struggle that Clayton had known. It was only a part of the history that belonged to Nazareth Avenue Church since that memorable morning when the Holy Spirit sanctioned the Christ-like pledge. Not even the Bishop and Dr. Bruce, moving as they now did in the very presence itself of divine impulses, knew yet that over the whole sinful city the Spirit was brooding with mighty eagerness, waiting for the disciples to arise to the call of sacrifice and suffering, touching hearts long dull and cold, making business men and money-makers uneasy in their absorption by the one great struggle for more wealth, and stirring through the church as never in all the city's history the church had been moved. The Bishop and Dr. Bruce had already seen some wonderful things in their brief life at the Settlement. They were to see far greater soon, more astonishing revelations of the divine power than they had supposed possible in this age of the world. Within a month the saloon next the Settlement was closed. The saloon-keeper's lease had expired, and Clayton not only closed the property to the whiskey men, but offered the building to the Bishop and Dr. Bruce to use for the Settlement work, which had now grown so large that the building they had first rented was not sufficient for the different industries that were planned. One of the most important of these was the pure-food department suggested by Felicia. It was not a month after Clayton turned the saloon property over to the Settlement that Felicia found herself installed in the very room where souls had been lost, as head of the department not only of cooking but of a course of housekeeping for girls who wished to go out to service. She was now a resident of the Settlement, and found a home with Mrs. Bruce and the other young women from the city who were residents. Martha, the violinist, remained at the place where the Bishop had first discovered the two girls, and came over to the Settlement certain evenings to give lessons in music. "Felicia, tell us your plan in full now," said the Bishop one evening when, in a rare interval of rest from the great pressure of work, he was with Dr. Bruce, and Felicia had come in from the other building. "Well, I have long thought of the hired girl problem," said Felicia with an air of wisdom that made Mrs. Bruce smile as she looked at the enthusiastic, vital beauty of this young girl, transformed into a new creature by the promise she had made to live the Christ-like life. "And I have reached certain conclusions in regard to it that you men are not yet able to fathom, but Mrs. Bruce will understand me." "We acknowledge our infancy, Felicia. Go on," said the Bishop humbly. "Then this is what I propose to do. The old saloon building is large enough to arrange into a suite of rooms that will represent an ordinary house. My plan is to have it so arranged, and then teach housekeeping and cooking to girls who will afterwards go out to service. The course will be six months' long; in that time I will teach plain cooking, neatness, quickness, and a love of good work." "Hold on, Felicia!" the Bishop interrupted, "this is not an age of miracles!" "Then we will make it one," replied Felicia. "I know this seems like an impossibility, but I want to try it. I know a score of girls already who will take the course, and if we can once establish something like an esprit de corps among the girls themselves, I am sure it will be of great value to them. I know already that the pure food is working a revolution in many families." "Felicia, if you can accomplish half what you propose it will bless this community," said Mrs. Bruce. "I don't see how you can do it, but I say, God bless you, as you try." "So say we all!" cried Dr. Bruce and the Bishop, and Felicia plunged into the working out of her plan with the enthusiasm of her discipleship which every day grew more and more practical and serviceable. It must be said here that Felicia's plan succeeded beyond all expectations. She developed wonderful powers of persuasion, and taught her girls with astonishing rapidity to do all sorts of housework. In time, the graduates of Felicia's cooking school came to be prized by housekeepers all over the city. But that is anticipating our story. The history of the Settlement has never yet been written. When it is Felicia's part will be found of very great importance. The depth of winter found Chicago presenting, as every great city of the world presents to the eyes of Christendom the marked contrast between riches and poverty, between culture, refinement, luxury, ease, and ignorance, depravity, destitution and the bitter struggle for bread. It was a hard winter but a gay winter. Never had there been such a succession of parties, receptions, balls, dinners, banquets, fetes, gayeties. Never had the opera and the theatre been so crowded with fashionable audiences. Never had there been such a lavish display of jewels and fine dresses and equipages. And on the other hand, never had the deep want and suffering been so cruel, so sharp, so murderous. Never had the winds blown so chilling over the lake and through the thin shells of tenements in the neighborhood of the Settlement. Never had the pressure for food and fuel and clothes been so urgently thrust up against the people of the city in their most importunate and ghastly form. Night after night the Bishop and Dr. Bruce with their helpers went out and helped save men and women and children from the torture of physical privation. Vast quantities of food and clothing and large sums of money were donated by the churches, the charitable societies, the civic authorities and the benevolent associations. But the personal touch of the Christian disciple was very hard to secure for personal work. Where was the discipleship that was obeying the Master's command to go itself to the suffering and give itself with its gift in order to make the gift of value in time to come? The Bishop found his heart sing within him as he faced this fact more than any other. Men would give money who would not think of giving themselves. And the money they gave did not represent any real sacrifice because they did not miss it. They gave what was the easiest to give, what hurt them the least. Where did the sacrifice come in? Was this following Jesus? Was this going with Him all the way? He had been to members of his own aristocratic, splendidly wealthy congregations, and was appalled to find how few men and women of that luxurious class in the churches would really suffer any genuine inconvenience for the sake of suffering humanity. Is charity the giving of worn-out garments? Is it a ten-dollar bill given to a paid visitor or secretary of some benevolent organization in the church? Shall the man never go and give his gift himself? Shall the woman never deny herself her reception or her party or her musicale, and go and actually touch, herself, the foul, sinful sore of diseased humanity as it festers in the great metropolis? Shall charity be conveniently and easily done through some organization? Is it possible to organize the affections so that love shall work disagreeable things by proxy? All this the Bishop asked as he plunged deeper into the sin and sorrow of that bitter winter. He was bearing his cross with joy. But he burned and fought within over the shifting of personal love by the many upon the hearts of the few. And still, silently, powerfully, resistlessly, the Holy Spirit was moving through the churches, even the aristocratic, wealthy, ease-loving members who shunned the terrors of the social problem as they would shun a contagious disease. Chapter Twenty-nine THE breakfast hour at the settlement was the one hour in the day when the whole family found a little breathing space to fellowship together. It was an hour of relaxation. There was a great deal of good-natured repartee and much real wit and enjoyable fun at this hour. The Bishop told his best stories. Dr. Bruce was at his best in anecdote. This company of disciples was healthily humorous in spite of the atmosphere of sorrow that constantly surrounded them. In fact, the Bishop often said the faculty of humor was as God-given as any other and in his own case it was the only safety valve he had for the tremendous pressure put upon him. This particular morning he was reading extracts from a morning paper for the benefit of the others. Suddenly he paused and his face instantly grew stern and sad. The rest looked up and a hush fell over the table. "Shot and killed while taking a lump of coal from a car! His family was freezing and he had had no work for six months. Six children and a wife all packed into a cabin with three rooms, on the West Side. One child wrapped in rags | odor | How many times the word 'odor' appears in the text? | 3 |
uttered an oath at the small amount of change he found. As he uttered it, the man with the pistol savagely said, "Jerk out his watch! We might as well get all we can out of the job!" The man with the stake was on the point of laying hold of the chain where there was a sound of footsteps coming towards him. "Get behind the fence! We haven't half searched him yet! Mind you keep shut now, if you don't want--" The man with the pistol made a significant gesture with it and, with his companion, pulled and pushed the Bishop down the alley and through a ragged, broken opening in the fence. The three stood still there in the shadow until the footsteps passed. "Now, then, have you got the watch?" asked the man with the pistol. "No, the chain is caught somewhere!" and the other man swore again. "Break it then!" "No, don't break it," the Bishop said, and it was the first time he had spoken. "The chain is the gift of a very dear friend. I should be sorry to have it broken." At the sound of the Bishop's voice the man with the pistol started as if he had been suddenly shot by his own weapon. With a quick movement of his other hand he turned the Bishop's head toward's what little light was shining from the alleyway, at the same time taking a step nearer. Then, to the amazement of his companion, he said roughly: "Leave the watch alone! We've got the money. That's enough!" "Enough! Fifty cents! You don't reckon--" Before the man with the stake could say another word he was confronted with the muzzle of the pistol turned from the Bishop's head towards his own. "Leave that watch be! And put back the money too. This is the Bishop we've held up--the Bishop--do you hear?" "And what of it! The President of the United States wouldn't be too good to hold up, if--" "I say, you put the money back, or in five seconds I'll blow a hole through your head that'll let in more sense than you have to spare now!" said the other. For a second the man with the stake seemed to hesitate at this strange turn in events, as if measuring his companion's intention. Then he hastily dropped the money back into the rifled pocket. "You can take your hands down, sir." The man lowered his weapon slowly, still keeping an eye on the other man, and speaking with rough respect. The Bishop slowly brought his arms to his side, and looked earnestly at the two men. In the dim light it was difficult to distinguish features. He was evidently free to go his way now, but he stood there making no movement. "You can go on. You needn't stay any longer on our account." The man who had acted as spokesman turned and sat down on a stone. The other man stood viciously digging his stake into the ground. "That's just what I am staying for," replied the Bishop. He sat down on a board that projected from the broken fence. "You must like our company. It is hard sometimes for people to tear themselves away from us," and the man standing up laughed coarsely. "Shut up!" exclaimed the other. "We're on the road to hell, though, that's sure enough. We need better company than ourselves and the devil." "If you would only allow me to be of any help," the Bishop spoke gently, even lovingly. The man on the stone stared at the Bishop through the darkness. After a moment of silence he spoke slowly like one who had finally decided upon a course he had at first rejected. "Do you remember ever seeing me before?" "No," said the Bishop. "The light is not very good and I have really not had a good look at you." "Do you know me now?" The man suddenly took off his hat and getting up from the stone walked over to the Bishop until they were near enough to touch each other. The man's hair was coal black except one spot on the top of his head about as large as the palm of the hand, which was white. The minute the Bishop saw that, he started. The memory of fifteen years ago began to stir in him. The man helped him. "Don't you remember one day back in '81 or '82 a man came to your house and told a story about his wife and child having been burned to death in a tenement fire in New York?" "Yes, I begin to remember now." The other man seemed to be interested. He ceased digging his stake in the ground and stood still listening. "Do you remember how you took me into your own house that night and spent all next day trying to find me a job? And how when you succeeded in getting me a place in a warehouse as foreman, I promised to quit drinking because you asked me to?" "I remember it now. I hope you have kept your promise." The man laughed savagely. Then he struck his hand against the fence with such sudden passion that he drew blood. "Kept it! I was drunk inside of a week! I've been drinking ever since. But I've never forgotten you nor your prayer. Do you remember the morning after I came to your house, after breakfast you had prayers and asked me to come in and sit with the rest? That got me! But my mother used to pray! I can see her now kneeling down by my bed when I was a lad. Father came in one night and kicked her while she was kneeling there by me. But I never forgot that prayer of yours that morning. You prayed for me just as mother used to, and you didn't seem to take 'count of the fact that I was ragged and tough-looking and more than half drunk when I rang your door bell. Oh, what a life I've lived! The saloon has housed me and homed me and made hell on earth for me. But that prayer stuck to me all the time. My promise not to drink was broken into a thousand pieces inside of two Sundays, and I lost the job you found for me and landed in a police station two days later, but I never forgot you nor your prayer. I don't know what good it has done me, but I never forgot it. And I won't do any harm to you nor let any one else. So you're free to go. That's why." The Bishop did not stir. Somewhere a church clock struck one. The man had put on his hat and gone back to his seat on the stone. The Bishop was thinking hard. "How long is it since you had work?" he asked, and the man standing up answered for the other. "More'n six months since either of us did anything to tell of; unless you count 'holding up' work. I call it pretty wearing kind of a job myself, especially when we put in a night like this and don't make nothin'." "Suppose I found good jobs for both of you? Would you quit this and begin all over?" "What's the use?" the man on the stone spoke sullenly. "I've reformed a hundred times. Every time I go down deeper. The devil's begun to foreclose on me already. It's too late." "No!" said the Bishop. And never before the most entranced audience had he felt the desire for souls burn up in him so strongly. All the time he sat there during the remarkable scene he prayed, "O Lord Jesus, give me the souls of these two for Thee! I am hungry for them. Give them to me!" "No!" the Bishop repeated. "What does God want of you two men? It doesn't so much matter what I want. But He wants just what I do in this case. You two men are of infinite value to Him." And then his wonderful memory came to his aid in an appeal such as no one on earth among men could make under such circumstances. He had remembered the man's name in spite of the wonderfully busy years that lay between his coming to the house and the present moment. "Burns," he said, and he yearned over the men with an unspeakable longing for them both, "if you and your friend here will go home with me tonight I will find you both places of honorable employment. I will believe in you and trust you. You are both comparatively young men. Why should God lose you? It is a great thing to win the love of the Great Father. It is a small thing that I should love you. But if you need to feel again that there is love in the world, you will believe me when I say, my brothers, that I love you, and in the name of Him who was crucified for our sins I cannot bear to see you miss the glory of the human life. Come, be men! Make another try for it, God helping you. No one but God and you and myself need ever know anything of this tonight. He has forgiven it the minute you ask Him to. You will find that true. Come! We'll fight it out together, you two and I. It's worth fighting for, everlasting life is. It was the sinner that Christ came to help. I'll do what I can for you. O God, give me the souls of these two men!" and he broke into a prayer to God that was a continuation of his appeal to the men. His pent-up feeling had no other outlet. Before he had prayed many moments Burns was sitting with his face buried in his hands, sobbing. Where were his mother's prayers now? They were adding to the power of the Bishop's. And the other man, harder, less moved, without a previous knowledge of the Bishop, leaned back against the fence, stolid at first. But as the prayer went on, he was moved by it. What force of the Holy Spirit swept over his dulled, brutal, coarsened life, nothing but the eternal records of the recording angel can ever disclose. But the same supernatural Presence that smote Paul on the road to Damascus, and poured through Henry Maxwell's church the morning he asked disciples to follow in Jesus' steps, and had again broken irresistibly over the Nazareth Avenue congregation, now manifested Himself in this foul corner of the mighty city and over the natures of these two sinful sunken men, apparently lost to all the pleadings of conscience and memory and God. The prayer seemed to red open the crust that for years had surrounded them and shut them off from divine communication. And they themselves were thoroughly startled by it. The Bishop ceased, and at first he himself did not realize what had happened. Neither did they. Burns still sat with his head bowed between his knees. The man leaning against the fence looked at the Bishop with a face in which new emotions of awe, repentance, astonishment and a broken gleam of joy struggled for expression. The Bishop rose. "Come, my brothers. God is good. You shall stay at the Settlement tonight, and I will make good my promise as to the work." The two men followed him in silence. When they reached the Settlement it was after two o'clock. He let them in and led them to a room. At the door he paused a moment. His tall, commanding figure stood in the doorway and his pale face was illuminated with the divine glory. "God bless you, my brothers!" he said, and leaving them his benediction he went away. Chapter Twenty-eight IT WAS the afternoon of that morning when Burns was installed in his new position as assistant janitor that he was cleaning off the front steps of the Settlement, when he paused a moment and stood up to look about him. The first thing he noticed was a beer sign just across the alley. He could almost touch it with his broom from where he stood. Over the street immediately opposite were two large saloons, and a little farther down were three more. Suddenly the door of the nearest saloon opened and a man came out. At the same time two more went in. A strong odor of beer floated up to Burns as he stood on the steps. He clutched his broom handle tightly and began to sweep again. He had one foot on the porch and another on the steps just below. He took another step down, still sweeping. The sweat stood on his forehead although the day was frosty and the air chill. The saloon door opened again and three or four men came out. A child went in with a pail, and came out a moment later with a quart of beer. The child went by on the sidewalk just below him, and the odor of the beer came up to him. He took another step down, still sweeping desperately. His fingers were purple as he clutched the handle of the broom. Then suddenly he pulled himself up one step and swept over the spot he had just cleaned. He then dragged himself by a tremendous effort back to the floor of the porch and went over into the corner of it farthest from the saloon and began to sweep there. "O God!" he cried, "if the Bishop would only come back!" The Bishop had gone out with Dr. Bruce somewhere, and there was no one about that he knew. He swept in the corner for two or three minutes. His face was drawn with the agony of his conflict. Gradually he edged out again towards the steps and began to go down them. He looked towards the sidewalk and saw that he had left one step unswept. The sight seemed to give him a reasonable excuse for going down there to finish his sweeping. He was on the sidewalk now, sweeping the last step, with his face towards the Settlement and his back turned partly on the saloon across the alley. He swept the step a dozen times. The sweat rolled over his face and dropped down at his feet. By degrees he felt that he was drawn over towards that end of the step nearest the saloon. He could smell the beer and rum now as the fumes rose around him. It was like the infernal sulphur of the lowest hell, and yet it dragged him as by a giant's hand nearer its source. He was down in the middle of the sidewalk now, still sweeping. He cleared the space in front of the Settlement and even went out into the gutter and swept that. He took off his hat and rubbed his sleeve over his face. His lips were pallid and his teeth chattered. He trembled all over like a palsied man and staggered back and forth as if he was already drunk. His soul shook within him. He had crossed over the little piece of stone flagging that measured the width of the alley, and now he stood in front of the saloon, looking at the sign, and staring into the window at the pile of whiskey and beer bottles arranged in a great pyramid inside. He moistened his lips with his tongue and took a step forward, looking around him stealthily. The door suddenly opened again and someone came out. Again the hot, penetrating smell of liquor swept out into the cold air, and he took another step towards the saloon door which had shut behind the customer. As he laid his fingers on the door handle, a tall figure came around the corner. It was the Bishop. He seized Burns by the arm and dragged him back upon the sidewalk. The frenzied man, now mad for a drink, shrieked out a curse and struck at his friend savagely. It is doubtful if he really knew at first who was snatching him away from his ruin. The blow fell upon the Bishop's face and cut a gash in his cheek. He never uttered a word. But over his face a look of majestic sorrow swept. He picked Burns up as if he had been a child and actually carried him up the steps and into the house. He put him down in the hall and then shut the door and put his back against it. Burns fell on his knees sobbing and praying. The Bishop stood there panting with his exertion, although Burns was a slightly-built man and had not been a great weight for a man of his strength to carry. He was moved with unspeakable pity. "Pray, Burns--pray as you never prayed before! Nothing else will save you!" "O God! Pray with me. Save me! Oh, save me from my hell!" cried Burns. And, the Bishop knelt by him in the hall and prayed as only he could pray. After that they rose and Burns went to his room. He came out of it that evening like a humble child. And the Bishop went his way older from that experience, bearing on his body the marks of the Lord Jesus. Truly he was learning something of what it means to walk in His steps. But the saloon! It stood there, and all the others lined the street like so many traps set for Burns. How long would the man be able to resist the smell of the damnable stuff? The Bishop went out on the porch. The air of the whole city seemed to be impregnated with the odor of beer. "How long, O Lord, how long?" he prayed. Dr. Bruce came out, and the two friends talked about Burns and his temptation. "Did you ever make any inquiries about the ownership of this property adjoining us?" the Bishop asked. "No, I haven't taken time for it. I will now if you think it would be worth while. But what can we do, Edward, against the saloon in this great city? It is as firmly established as the churches or politics. What power can ever remove it?" "God will do it in time, as He has removed slavery," was the grave reply. "Meanwhile I think we have a right to know who controls this saloon so near the Settlement." "I'll find out," said Dr. Bruce. Two days later he walked into the business office of one of the members of Nazareth Avenue Church and asked to see him a few moments. He was cordially received by his old parishioner, who welcomed him into his room and urged him to take all the time he wanted. "I called to see you about that property next the Settlement where the Bishop and myself now are, you know. I am going to speak plainly, because life is too short and too serious for us both to have any foolish hesitation about this matter. Clayton, do you think it is right to rent that property for a saloon?" Dr. Bruce's question was as direct and uncompromising as he had meant it to be. The effect of it on his old parishioner was instantaneous. The hot blood mounted to the face of the man who sat there beneath a picture of business activity in a great city. Then he grew pale, dropped his head on his hands, and when he raised it again Dr. Bruce was amazed to see a tear roll over his face. "Doctor, did you know that I took the pledge that morning with the others?" "Yes, I remember." "But you never knew how I have been tormented over my failure to keep it in this instance. That saloon property has been the temptation of the devil to me. It is the best paying investment at present that I have. And yet it was only a minute before you came in here that I was in an agony of remorse to think how I was letting a little earthly gain tempt me into a denial of the very Christ I had promised to follow. I knew well enough that He would never rent property for such a purpose. There is no need, Dr. Bruce, for you to say a word more." Clayton held out his hand and Dr. Bruce grasped it and shook it hard. After a little he went away. But it was a long time afterwards that he learned all the truth about the struggle that Clayton had known. It was only a part of the history that belonged to Nazareth Avenue Church since that memorable morning when the Holy Spirit sanctioned the Christ-like pledge. Not even the Bishop and Dr. Bruce, moving as they now did in the very presence itself of divine impulses, knew yet that over the whole sinful city the Spirit was brooding with mighty eagerness, waiting for the disciples to arise to the call of sacrifice and suffering, touching hearts long dull and cold, making business men and money-makers uneasy in their absorption by the one great struggle for more wealth, and stirring through the church as never in all the city's history the church had been moved. The Bishop and Dr. Bruce had already seen some wonderful things in their brief life at the Settlement. They were to see far greater soon, more astonishing revelations of the divine power than they had supposed possible in this age of the world. Within a month the saloon next the Settlement was closed. The saloon-keeper's lease had expired, and Clayton not only closed the property to the whiskey men, but offered the building to the Bishop and Dr. Bruce to use for the Settlement work, which had now grown so large that the building they had first rented was not sufficient for the different industries that were planned. One of the most important of these was the pure-food department suggested by Felicia. It was not a month after Clayton turned the saloon property over to the Settlement that Felicia found herself installed in the very room where souls had been lost, as head of the department not only of cooking but of a course of housekeeping for girls who wished to go out to service. She was now a resident of the Settlement, and found a home with Mrs. Bruce and the other young women from the city who were residents. Martha, the violinist, remained at the place where the Bishop had first discovered the two girls, and came over to the Settlement certain evenings to give lessons in music. "Felicia, tell us your plan in full now," said the Bishop one evening when, in a rare interval of rest from the great pressure of work, he was with Dr. Bruce, and Felicia had come in from the other building. "Well, I have long thought of the hired girl problem," said Felicia with an air of wisdom that made Mrs. Bruce smile as she looked at the enthusiastic, vital beauty of this young girl, transformed into a new creature by the promise she had made to live the Christ-like life. "And I have reached certain conclusions in regard to it that you men are not yet able to fathom, but Mrs. Bruce will understand me." "We acknowledge our infancy, Felicia. Go on," said the Bishop humbly. "Then this is what I propose to do. The old saloon building is large enough to arrange into a suite of rooms that will represent an ordinary house. My plan is to have it so arranged, and then teach housekeeping and cooking to girls who will afterwards go out to service. The course will be six months' long; in that time I will teach plain cooking, neatness, quickness, and a love of good work." "Hold on, Felicia!" the Bishop interrupted, "this is not an age of miracles!" "Then we will make it one," replied Felicia. "I know this seems like an impossibility, but I want to try it. I know a score of girls already who will take the course, and if we can once establish something like an esprit de corps among the girls themselves, I am sure it will be of great value to them. I know already that the pure food is working a revolution in many families." "Felicia, if you can accomplish half what you propose it will bless this community," said Mrs. Bruce. "I don't see how you can do it, but I say, God bless you, as you try." "So say we all!" cried Dr. Bruce and the Bishop, and Felicia plunged into the working out of her plan with the enthusiasm of her discipleship which every day grew more and more practical and serviceable. It must be said here that Felicia's plan succeeded beyond all expectations. She developed wonderful powers of persuasion, and taught her girls with astonishing rapidity to do all sorts of housework. In time, the graduates of Felicia's cooking school came to be prized by housekeepers all over the city. But that is anticipating our story. The history of the Settlement has never yet been written. When it is Felicia's part will be found of very great importance. The depth of winter found Chicago presenting, as every great city of the world presents to the eyes of Christendom the marked contrast between riches and poverty, between culture, refinement, luxury, ease, and ignorance, depravity, destitution and the bitter struggle for bread. It was a hard winter but a gay winter. Never had there been such a succession of parties, receptions, balls, dinners, banquets, fetes, gayeties. Never had the opera and the theatre been so crowded with fashionable audiences. Never had there been such a lavish display of jewels and fine dresses and equipages. And on the other hand, never had the deep want and suffering been so cruel, so sharp, so murderous. Never had the winds blown so chilling over the lake and through the thin shells of tenements in the neighborhood of the Settlement. Never had the pressure for food and fuel and clothes been so urgently thrust up against the people of the city in their most importunate and ghastly form. Night after night the Bishop and Dr. Bruce with their helpers went out and helped save men and women and children from the torture of physical privation. Vast quantities of food and clothing and large sums of money were donated by the churches, the charitable societies, the civic authorities and the benevolent associations. But the personal touch of the Christian disciple was very hard to secure for personal work. Where was the discipleship that was obeying the Master's command to go itself to the suffering and give itself with its gift in order to make the gift of value in time to come? The Bishop found his heart sing within him as he faced this fact more than any other. Men would give money who would not think of giving themselves. And the money they gave did not represent any real sacrifice because they did not miss it. They gave what was the easiest to give, what hurt them the least. Where did the sacrifice come in? Was this following Jesus? Was this going with Him all the way? He had been to members of his own aristocratic, splendidly wealthy congregations, and was appalled to find how few men and women of that luxurious class in the churches would really suffer any genuine inconvenience for the sake of suffering humanity. Is charity the giving of worn-out garments? Is it a ten-dollar bill given to a paid visitor or secretary of some benevolent organization in the church? Shall the man never go and give his gift himself? Shall the woman never deny herself her reception or her party or her musicale, and go and actually touch, herself, the foul, sinful sore of diseased humanity as it festers in the great metropolis? Shall charity be conveniently and easily done through some organization? Is it possible to organize the affections so that love shall work disagreeable things by proxy? All this the Bishop asked as he plunged deeper into the sin and sorrow of that bitter winter. He was bearing his cross with joy. But he burned and fought within over the shifting of personal love by the many upon the hearts of the few. And still, silently, powerfully, resistlessly, the Holy Spirit was moving through the churches, even the aristocratic, wealthy, ease-loving members who shunned the terrors of the social problem as they would shun a contagious disease. Chapter Twenty-nine THE breakfast hour at the settlement was the one hour in the day when the whole family found a little breathing space to fellowship together. It was an hour of relaxation. There was a great deal of good-natured repartee and much real wit and enjoyable fun at this hour. The Bishop told his best stories. Dr. Bruce was at his best in anecdote. This company of disciples was healthily humorous in spite of the atmosphere of sorrow that constantly surrounded them. In fact, the Bishop often said the faculty of humor was as God-given as any other and in his own case it was the only safety valve he had for the tremendous pressure put upon him. This particular morning he was reading extracts from a morning paper for the benefit of the others. Suddenly he paused and his face instantly grew stern and sad. The rest looked up and a hush fell over the table. "Shot and killed while taking a lump of coal from a car! His family was freezing and he had had no work for six months. Six children and a wife all packed into a cabin with three rooms, on the West Side. One child wrapped in rags | alliance | How many times the word 'alliance' appears in the text? | 0 |
uttered an oath at the small amount of change he found. As he uttered it, the man with the pistol savagely said, "Jerk out his watch! We might as well get all we can out of the job!" The man with the stake was on the point of laying hold of the chain where there was a sound of footsteps coming towards him. "Get behind the fence! We haven't half searched him yet! Mind you keep shut now, if you don't want--" The man with the pistol made a significant gesture with it and, with his companion, pulled and pushed the Bishop down the alley and through a ragged, broken opening in the fence. The three stood still there in the shadow until the footsteps passed. "Now, then, have you got the watch?" asked the man with the pistol. "No, the chain is caught somewhere!" and the other man swore again. "Break it then!" "No, don't break it," the Bishop said, and it was the first time he had spoken. "The chain is the gift of a very dear friend. I should be sorry to have it broken." At the sound of the Bishop's voice the man with the pistol started as if he had been suddenly shot by his own weapon. With a quick movement of his other hand he turned the Bishop's head toward's what little light was shining from the alleyway, at the same time taking a step nearer. Then, to the amazement of his companion, he said roughly: "Leave the watch alone! We've got the money. That's enough!" "Enough! Fifty cents! You don't reckon--" Before the man with the stake could say another word he was confronted with the muzzle of the pistol turned from the Bishop's head towards his own. "Leave that watch be! And put back the money too. This is the Bishop we've held up--the Bishop--do you hear?" "And what of it! The President of the United States wouldn't be too good to hold up, if--" "I say, you put the money back, or in five seconds I'll blow a hole through your head that'll let in more sense than you have to spare now!" said the other. For a second the man with the stake seemed to hesitate at this strange turn in events, as if measuring his companion's intention. Then he hastily dropped the money back into the rifled pocket. "You can take your hands down, sir." The man lowered his weapon slowly, still keeping an eye on the other man, and speaking with rough respect. The Bishop slowly brought his arms to his side, and looked earnestly at the two men. In the dim light it was difficult to distinguish features. He was evidently free to go his way now, but he stood there making no movement. "You can go on. You needn't stay any longer on our account." The man who had acted as spokesman turned and sat down on a stone. The other man stood viciously digging his stake into the ground. "That's just what I am staying for," replied the Bishop. He sat down on a board that projected from the broken fence. "You must like our company. It is hard sometimes for people to tear themselves away from us," and the man standing up laughed coarsely. "Shut up!" exclaimed the other. "We're on the road to hell, though, that's sure enough. We need better company than ourselves and the devil." "If you would only allow me to be of any help," the Bishop spoke gently, even lovingly. The man on the stone stared at the Bishop through the darkness. After a moment of silence he spoke slowly like one who had finally decided upon a course he had at first rejected. "Do you remember ever seeing me before?" "No," said the Bishop. "The light is not very good and I have really not had a good look at you." "Do you know me now?" The man suddenly took off his hat and getting up from the stone walked over to the Bishop until they were near enough to touch each other. The man's hair was coal black except one spot on the top of his head about as large as the palm of the hand, which was white. The minute the Bishop saw that, he started. The memory of fifteen years ago began to stir in him. The man helped him. "Don't you remember one day back in '81 or '82 a man came to your house and told a story about his wife and child having been burned to death in a tenement fire in New York?" "Yes, I begin to remember now." The other man seemed to be interested. He ceased digging his stake in the ground and stood still listening. "Do you remember how you took me into your own house that night and spent all next day trying to find me a job? And how when you succeeded in getting me a place in a warehouse as foreman, I promised to quit drinking because you asked me to?" "I remember it now. I hope you have kept your promise." The man laughed savagely. Then he struck his hand against the fence with such sudden passion that he drew blood. "Kept it! I was drunk inside of a week! I've been drinking ever since. But I've never forgotten you nor your prayer. Do you remember the morning after I came to your house, after breakfast you had prayers and asked me to come in and sit with the rest? That got me! But my mother used to pray! I can see her now kneeling down by my bed when I was a lad. Father came in one night and kicked her while she was kneeling there by me. But I never forgot that prayer of yours that morning. You prayed for me just as mother used to, and you didn't seem to take 'count of the fact that I was ragged and tough-looking and more than half drunk when I rang your door bell. Oh, what a life I've lived! The saloon has housed me and homed me and made hell on earth for me. But that prayer stuck to me all the time. My promise not to drink was broken into a thousand pieces inside of two Sundays, and I lost the job you found for me and landed in a police station two days later, but I never forgot you nor your prayer. I don't know what good it has done me, but I never forgot it. And I won't do any harm to you nor let any one else. So you're free to go. That's why." The Bishop did not stir. Somewhere a church clock struck one. The man had put on his hat and gone back to his seat on the stone. The Bishop was thinking hard. "How long is it since you had work?" he asked, and the man standing up answered for the other. "More'n six months since either of us did anything to tell of; unless you count 'holding up' work. I call it pretty wearing kind of a job myself, especially when we put in a night like this and don't make nothin'." "Suppose I found good jobs for both of you? Would you quit this and begin all over?" "What's the use?" the man on the stone spoke sullenly. "I've reformed a hundred times. Every time I go down deeper. The devil's begun to foreclose on me already. It's too late." "No!" said the Bishop. And never before the most entranced audience had he felt the desire for souls burn up in him so strongly. All the time he sat there during the remarkable scene he prayed, "O Lord Jesus, give me the souls of these two for Thee! I am hungry for them. Give them to me!" "No!" the Bishop repeated. "What does God want of you two men? It doesn't so much matter what I want. But He wants just what I do in this case. You two men are of infinite value to Him." And then his wonderful memory came to his aid in an appeal such as no one on earth among men could make under such circumstances. He had remembered the man's name in spite of the wonderfully busy years that lay between his coming to the house and the present moment. "Burns," he said, and he yearned over the men with an unspeakable longing for them both, "if you and your friend here will go home with me tonight I will find you both places of honorable employment. I will believe in you and trust you. You are both comparatively young men. Why should God lose you? It is a great thing to win the love of the Great Father. It is a small thing that I should love you. But if you need to feel again that there is love in the world, you will believe me when I say, my brothers, that I love you, and in the name of Him who was crucified for our sins I cannot bear to see you miss the glory of the human life. Come, be men! Make another try for it, God helping you. No one but God and you and myself need ever know anything of this tonight. He has forgiven it the minute you ask Him to. You will find that true. Come! We'll fight it out together, you two and I. It's worth fighting for, everlasting life is. It was the sinner that Christ came to help. I'll do what I can for you. O God, give me the souls of these two men!" and he broke into a prayer to God that was a continuation of his appeal to the men. His pent-up feeling had no other outlet. Before he had prayed many moments Burns was sitting with his face buried in his hands, sobbing. Where were his mother's prayers now? They were adding to the power of the Bishop's. And the other man, harder, less moved, without a previous knowledge of the Bishop, leaned back against the fence, stolid at first. But as the prayer went on, he was moved by it. What force of the Holy Spirit swept over his dulled, brutal, coarsened life, nothing but the eternal records of the recording angel can ever disclose. But the same supernatural Presence that smote Paul on the road to Damascus, and poured through Henry Maxwell's church the morning he asked disciples to follow in Jesus' steps, and had again broken irresistibly over the Nazareth Avenue congregation, now manifested Himself in this foul corner of the mighty city and over the natures of these two sinful sunken men, apparently lost to all the pleadings of conscience and memory and God. The prayer seemed to red open the crust that for years had surrounded them and shut them off from divine communication. And they themselves were thoroughly startled by it. The Bishop ceased, and at first he himself did not realize what had happened. Neither did they. Burns still sat with his head bowed between his knees. The man leaning against the fence looked at the Bishop with a face in which new emotions of awe, repentance, astonishment and a broken gleam of joy struggled for expression. The Bishop rose. "Come, my brothers. God is good. You shall stay at the Settlement tonight, and I will make good my promise as to the work." The two men followed him in silence. When they reached the Settlement it was after two o'clock. He let them in and led them to a room. At the door he paused a moment. His tall, commanding figure stood in the doorway and his pale face was illuminated with the divine glory. "God bless you, my brothers!" he said, and leaving them his benediction he went away. Chapter Twenty-eight IT WAS the afternoon of that morning when Burns was installed in his new position as assistant janitor that he was cleaning off the front steps of the Settlement, when he paused a moment and stood up to look about him. The first thing he noticed was a beer sign just across the alley. He could almost touch it with his broom from where he stood. Over the street immediately opposite were two large saloons, and a little farther down were three more. Suddenly the door of the nearest saloon opened and a man came out. At the same time two more went in. A strong odor of beer floated up to Burns as he stood on the steps. He clutched his broom handle tightly and began to sweep again. He had one foot on the porch and another on the steps just below. He took another step down, still sweeping. The sweat stood on his forehead although the day was frosty and the air chill. The saloon door opened again and three or four men came out. A child went in with a pail, and came out a moment later with a quart of beer. The child went by on the sidewalk just below him, and the odor of the beer came up to him. He took another step down, still sweeping desperately. His fingers were purple as he clutched the handle of the broom. Then suddenly he pulled himself up one step and swept over the spot he had just cleaned. He then dragged himself by a tremendous effort back to the floor of the porch and went over into the corner of it farthest from the saloon and began to sweep there. "O God!" he cried, "if the Bishop would only come back!" The Bishop had gone out with Dr. Bruce somewhere, and there was no one about that he knew. He swept in the corner for two or three minutes. His face was drawn with the agony of his conflict. Gradually he edged out again towards the steps and began to go down them. He looked towards the sidewalk and saw that he had left one step unswept. The sight seemed to give him a reasonable excuse for going down there to finish his sweeping. He was on the sidewalk now, sweeping the last step, with his face towards the Settlement and his back turned partly on the saloon across the alley. He swept the step a dozen times. The sweat rolled over his face and dropped down at his feet. By degrees he felt that he was drawn over towards that end of the step nearest the saloon. He could smell the beer and rum now as the fumes rose around him. It was like the infernal sulphur of the lowest hell, and yet it dragged him as by a giant's hand nearer its source. He was down in the middle of the sidewalk now, still sweeping. He cleared the space in front of the Settlement and even went out into the gutter and swept that. He took off his hat and rubbed his sleeve over his face. His lips were pallid and his teeth chattered. He trembled all over like a palsied man and staggered back and forth as if he was already drunk. His soul shook within him. He had crossed over the little piece of stone flagging that measured the width of the alley, and now he stood in front of the saloon, looking at the sign, and staring into the window at the pile of whiskey and beer bottles arranged in a great pyramid inside. He moistened his lips with his tongue and took a step forward, looking around him stealthily. The door suddenly opened again and someone came out. Again the hot, penetrating smell of liquor swept out into the cold air, and he took another step towards the saloon door which had shut behind the customer. As he laid his fingers on the door handle, a tall figure came around the corner. It was the Bishop. He seized Burns by the arm and dragged him back upon the sidewalk. The frenzied man, now mad for a drink, shrieked out a curse and struck at his friend savagely. It is doubtful if he really knew at first who was snatching him away from his ruin. The blow fell upon the Bishop's face and cut a gash in his cheek. He never uttered a word. But over his face a look of majestic sorrow swept. He picked Burns up as if he had been a child and actually carried him up the steps and into the house. He put him down in the hall and then shut the door and put his back against it. Burns fell on his knees sobbing and praying. The Bishop stood there panting with his exertion, although Burns was a slightly-built man and had not been a great weight for a man of his strength to carry. He was moved with unspeakable pity. "Pray, Burns--pray as you never prayed before! Nothing else will save you!" "O God! Pray with me. Save me! Oh, save me from my hell!" cried Burns. And, the Bishop knelt by him in the hall and prayed as only he could pray. After that they rose and Burns went to his room. He came out of it that evening like a humble child. And the Bishop went his way older from that experience, bearing on his body the marks of the Lord Jesus. Truly he was learning something of what it means to walk in His steps. But the saloon! It stood there, and all the others lined the street like so many traps set for Burns. How long would the man be able to resist the smell of the damnable stuff? The Bishop went out on the porch. The air of the whole city seemed to be impregnated with the odor of beer. "How long, O Lord, how long?" he prayed. Dr. Bruce came out, and the two friends talked about Burns and his temptation. "Did you ever make any inquiries about the ownership of this property adjoining us?" the Bishop asked. "No, I haven't taken time for it. I will now if you think it would be worth while. But what can we do, Edward, against the saloon in this great city? It is as firmly established as the churches or politics. What power can ever remove it?" "God will do it in time, as He has removed slavery," was the grave reply. "Meanwhile I think we have a right to know who controls this saloon so near the Settlement." "I'll find out," said Dr. Bruce. Two days later he walked into the business office of one of the members of Nazareth Avenue Church and asked to see him a few moments. He was cordially received by his old parishioner, who welcomed him into his room and urged him to take all the time he wanted. "I called to see you about that property next the Settlement where the Bishop and myself now are, you know. I am going to speak plainly, because life is too short and too serious for us both to have any foolish hesitation about this matter. Clayton, do you think it is right to rent that property for a saloon?" Dr. Bruce's question was as direct and uncompromising as he had meant it to be. The effect of it on his old parishioner was instantaneous. The hot blood mounted to the face of the man who sat there beneath a picture of business activity in a great city. Then he grew pale, dropped his head on his hands, and when he raised it again Dr. Bruce was amazed to see a tear roll over his face. "Doctor, did you know that I took the pledge that morning with the others?" "Yes, I remember." "But you never knew how I have been tormented over my failure to keep it in this instance. That saloon property has been the temptation of the devil to me. It is the best paying investment at present that I have. And yet it was only a minute before you came in here that I was in an agony of remorse to think how I was letting a little earthly gain tempt me into a denial of the very Christ I had promised to follow. I knew well enough that He would never rent property for such a purpose. There is no need, Dr. Bruce, for you to say a word more." Clayton held out his hand and Dr. Bruce grasped it and shook it hard. After a little he went away. But it was a long time afterwards that he learned all the truth about the struggle that Clayton had known. It was only a part of the history that belonged to Nazareth Avenue Church since that memorable morning when the Holy Spirit sanctioned the Christ-like pledge. Not even the Bishop and Dr. Bruce, moving as they now did in the very presence itself of divine impulses, knew yet that over the whole sinful city the Spirit was brooding with mighty eagerness, waiting for the disciples to arise to the call of sacrifice and suffering, touching hearts long dull and cold, making business men and money-makers uneasy in their absorption by the one great struggle for more wealth, and stirring through the church as never in all the city's history the church had been moved. The Bishop and Dr. Bruce had already seen some wonderful things in their brief life at the Settlement. They were to see far greater soon, more astonishing revelations of the divine power than they had supposed possible in this age of the world. Within a month the saloon next the Settlement was closed. The saloon-keeper's lease had expired, and Clayton not only closed the property to the whiskey men, but offered the building to the Bishop and Dr. Bruce to use for the Settlement work, which had now grown so large that the building they had first rented was not sufficient for the different industries that were planned. One of the most important of these was the pure-food department suggested by Felicia. It was not a month after Clayton turned the saloon property over to the Settlement that Felicia found herself installed in the very room where souls had been lost, as head of the department not only of cooking but of a course of housekeeping for girls who wished to go out to service. She was now a resident of the Settlement, and found a home with Mrs. Bruce and the other young women from the city who were residents. Martha, the violinist, remained at the place where the Bishop had first discovered the two girls, and came over to the Settlement certain evenings to give lessons in music. "Felicia, tell us your plan in full now," said the Bishop one evening when, in a rare interval of rest from the great pressure of work, he was with Dr. Bruce, and Felicia had come in from the other building. "Well, I have long thought of the hired girl problem," said Felicia with an air of wisdom that made Mrs. Bruce smile as she looked at the enthusiastic, vital beauty of this young girl, transformed into a new creature by the promise she had made to live the Christ-like life. "And I have reached certain conclusions in regard to it that you men are not yet able to fathom, but Mrs. Bruce will understand me." "We acknowledge our infancy, Felicia. Go on," said the Bishop humbly. "Then this is what I propose to do. The old saloon building is large enough to arrange into a suite of rooms that will represent an ordinary house. My plan is to have it so arranged, and then teach housekeeping and cooking to girls who will afterwards go out to service. The course will be six months' long; in that time I will teach plain cooking, neatness, quickness, and a love of good work." "Hold on, Felicia!" the Bishop interrupted, "this is not an age of miracles!" "Then we will make it one," replied Felicia. "I know this seems like an impossibility, but I want to try it. I know a score of girls already who will take the course, and if we can once establish something like an esprit de corps among the girls themselves, I am sure it will be of great value to them. I know already that the pure food is working a revolution in many families." "Felicia, if you can accomplish half what you propose it will bless this community," said Mrs. Bruce. "I don't see how you can do it, but I say, God bless you, as you try." "So say we all!" cried Dr. Bruce and the Bishop, and Felicia plunged into the working out of her plan with the enthusiasm of her discipleship which every day grew more and more practical and serviceable. It must be said here that Felicia's plan succeeded beyond all expectations. She developed wonderful powers of persuasion, and taught her girls with astonishing rapidity to do all sorts of housework. In time, the graduates of Felicia's cooking school came to be prized by housekeepers all over the city. But that is anticipating our story. The history of the Settlement has never yet been written. When it is Felicia's part will be found of very great importance. The depth of winter found Chicago presenting, as every great city of the world presents to the eyes of Christendom the marked contrast between riches and poverty, between culture, refinement, luxury, ease, and ignorance, depravity, destitution and the bitter struggle for bread. It was a hard winter but a gay winter. Never had there been such a succession of parties, receptions, balls, dinners, banquets, fetes, gayeties. Never had the opera and the theatre been so crowded with fashionable audiences. Never had there been such a lavish display of jewels and fine dresses and equipages. And on the other hand, never had the deep want and suffering been so cruel, so sharp, so murderous. Never had the winds blown so chilling over the lake and through the thin shells of tenements in the neighborhood of the Settlement. Never had the pressure for food and fuel and clothes been so urgently thrust up against the people of the city in their most importunate and ghastly form. Night after night the Bishop and Dr. Bruce with their helpers went out and helped save men and women and children from the torture of physical privation. Vast quantities of food and clothing and large sums of money were donated by the churches, the charitable societies, the civic authorities and the benevolent associations. But the personal touch of the Christian disciple was very hard to secure for personal work. Where was the discipleship that was obeying the Master's command to go itself to the suffering and give itself with its gift in order to make the gift of value in time to come? The Bishop found his heart sing within him as he faced this fact more than any other. Men would give money who would not think of giving themselves. And the money they gave did not represent any real sacrifice because they did not miss it. They gave what was the easiest to give, what hurt them the least. Where did the sacrifice come in? Was this following Jesus? Was this going with Him all the way? He had been to members of his own aristocratic, splendidly wealthy congregations, and was appalled to find how few men and women of that luxurious class in the churches would really suffer any genuine inconvenience for the sake of suffering humanity. Is charity the giving of worn-out garments? Is it a ten-dollar bill given to a paid visitor or secretary of some benevolent organization in the church? Shall the man never go and give his gift himself? Shall the woman never deny herself her reception or her party or her musicale, and go and actually touch, herself, the foul, sinful sore of diseased humanity as it festers in the great metropolis? Shall charity be conveniently and easily done through some organization? Is it possible to organize the affections so that love shall work disagreeable things by proxy? All this the Bishop asked as he plunged deeper into the sin and sorrow of that bitter winter. He was bearing his cross with joy. But he burned and fought within over the shifting of personal love by the many upon the hearts of the few. And still, silently, powerfully, resistlessly, the Holy Spirit was moving through the churches, even the aristocratic, wealthy, ease-loving members who shunned the terrors of the social problem as they would shun a contagious disease. Chapter Twenty-nine THE breakfast hour at the settlement was the one hour in the day when the whole family found a little breathing space to fellowship together. It was an hour of relaxation. There was a great deal of good-natured repartee and much real wit and enjoyable fun at this hour. The Bishop told his best stories. Dr. Bruce was at his best in anecdote. This company of disciples was healthily humorous in spite of the atmosphere of sorrow that constantly surrounded them. In fact, the Bishop often said the faculty of humor was as God-given as any other and in his own case it was the only safety valve he had for the tremendous pressure put upon him. This particular morning he was reading extracts from a morning paper for the benefit of the others. Suddenly he paused and his face instantly grew stern and sad. The rest looked up and a hush fell over the table. "Shot and killed while taking a lump of coal from a car! His family was freezing and he had had no work for six months. Six children and a wife all packed into a cabin with three rooms, on the West Side. One child wrapped in rags | strong | How many times the word 'strong' appears in the text? | 1 |
uttered an oath at the small amount of change he found. As he uttered it, the man with the pistol savagely said, "Jerk out his watch! We might as well get all we can out of the job!" The man with the stake was on the point of laying hold of the chain where there was a sound of footsteps coming towards him. "Get behind the fence! We haven't half searched him yet! Mind you keep shut now, if you don't want--" The man with the pistol made a significant gesture with it and, with his companion, pulled and pushed the Bishop down the alley and through a ragged, broken opening in the fence. The three stood still there in the shadow until the footsteps passed. "Now, then, have you got the watch?" asked the man with the pistol. "No, the chain is caught somewhere!" and the other man swore again. "Break it then!" "No, don't break it," the Bishop said, and it was the first time he had spoken. "The chain is the gift of a very dear friend. I should be sorry to have it broken." At the sound of the Bishop's voice the man with the pistol started as if he had been suddenly shot by his own weapon. With a quick movement of his other hand he turned the Bishop's head toward's what little light was shining from the alleyway, at the same time taking a step nearer. Then, to the amazement of his companion, he said roughly: "Leave the watch alone! We've got the money. That's enough!" "Enough! Fifty cents! You don't reckon--" Before the man with the stake could say another word he was confronted with the muzzle of the pistol turned from the Bishop's head towards his own. "Leave that watch be! And put back the money too. This is the Bishop we've held up--the Bishop--do you hear?" "And what of it! The President of the United States wouldn't be too good to hold up, if--" "I say, you put the money back, or in five seconds I'll blow a hole through your head that'll let in more sense than you have to spare now!" said the other. For a second the man with the stake seemed to hesitate at this strange turn in events, as if measuring his companion's intention. Then he hastily dropped the money back into the rifled pocket. "You can take your hands down, sir." The man lowered his weapon slowly, still keeping an eye on the other man, and speaking with rough respect. The Bishop slowly brought his arms to his side, and looked earnestly at the two men. In the dim light it was difficult to distinguish features. He was evidently free to go his way now, but he stood there making no movement. "You can go on. You needn't stay any longer on our account." The man who had acted as spokesman turned and sat down on a stone. The other man stood viciously digging his stake into the ground. "That's just what I am staying for," replied the Bishop. He sat down on a board that projected from the broken fence. "You must like our company. It is hard sometimes for people to tear themselves away from us," and the man standing up laughed coarsely. "Shut up!" exclaimed the other. "We're on the road to hell, though, that's sure enough. We need better company than ourselves and the devil." "If you would only allow me to be of any help," the Bishop spoke gently, even lovingly. The man on the stone stared at the Bishop through the darkness. After a moment of silence he spoke slowly like one who had finally decided upon a course he had at first rejected. "Do you remember ever seeing me before?" "No," said the Bishop. "The light is not very good and I have really not had a good look at you." "Do you know me now?" The man suddenly took off his hat and getting up from the stone walked over to the Bishop until they were near enough to touch each other. The man's hair was coal black except one spot on the top of his head about as large as the palm of the hand, which was white. The minute the Bishop saw that, he started. The memory of fifteen years ago began to stir in him. The man helped him. "Don't you remember one day back in '81 or '82 a man came to your house and told a story about his wife and child having been burned to death in a tenement fire in New York?" "Yes, I begin to remember now." The other man seemed to be interested. He ceased digging his stake in the ground and stood still listening. "Do you remember how you took me into your own house that night and spent all next day trying to find me a job? And how when you succeeded in getting me a place in a warehouse as foreman, I promised to quit drinking because you asked me to?" "I remember it now. I hope you have kept your promise." The man laughed savagely. Then he struck his hand against the fence with such sudden passion that he drew blood. "Kept it! I was drunk inside of a week! I've been drinking ever since. But I've never forgotten you nor your prayer. Do you remember the morning after I came to your house, after breakfast you had prayers and asked me to come in and sit with the rest? That got me! But my mother used to pray! I can see her now kneeling down by my bed when I was a lad. Father came in one night and kicked her while she was kneeling there by me. But I never forgot that prayer of yours that morning. You prayed for me just as mother used to, and you didn't seem to take 'count of the fact that I was ragged and tough-looking and more than half drunk when I rang your door bell. Oh, what a life I've lived! The saloon has housed me and homed me and made hell on earth for me. But that prayer stuck to me all the time. My promise not to drink was broken into a thousand pieces inside of two Sundays, and I lost the job you found for me and landed in a police station two days later, but I never forgot you nor your prayer. I don't know what good it has done me, but I never forgot it. And I won't do any harm to you nor let any one else. So you're free to go. That's why." The Bishop did not stir. Somewhere a church clock struck one. The man had put on his hat and gone back to his seat on the stone. The Bishop was thinking hard. "How long is it since you had work?" he asked, and the man standing up answered for the other. "More'n six months since either of us did anything to tell of; unless you count 'holding up' work. I call it pretty wearing kind of a job myself, especially when we put in a night like this and don't make nothin'." "Suppose I found good jobs for both of you? Would you quit this and begin all over?" "What's the use?" the man on the stone spoke sullenly. "I've reformed a hundred times. Every time I go down deeper. The devil's begun to foreclose on me already. It's too late." "No!" said the Bishop. And never before the most entranced audience had he felt the desire for souls burn up in him so strongly. All the time he sat there during the remarkable scene he prayed, "O Lord Jesus, give me the souls of these two for Thee! I am hungry for them. Give them to me!" "No!" the Bishop repeated. "What does God want of you two men? It doesn't so much matter what I want. But He wants just what I do in this case. You two men are of infinite value to Him." And then his wonderful memory came to his aid in an appeal such as no one on earth among men could make under such circumstances. He had remembered the man's name in spite of the wonderfully busy years that lay between his coming to the house and the present moment. "Burns," he said, and he yearned over the men with an unspeakable longing for them both, "if you and your friend here will go home with me tonight I will find you both places of honorable employment. I will believe in you and trust you. You are both comparatively young men. Why should God lose you? It is a great thing to win the love of the Great Father. It is a small thing that I should love you. But if you need to feel again that there is love in the world, you will believe me when I say, my brothers, that I love you, and in the name of Him who was crucified for our sins I cannot bear to see you miss the glory of the human life. Come, be men! Make another try for it, God helping you. No one but God and you and myself need ever know anything of this tonight. He has forgiven it the minute you ask Him to. You will find that true. Come! We'll fight it out together, you two and I. It's worth fighting for, everlasting life is. It was the sinner that Christ came to help. I'll do what I can for you. O God, give me the souls of these two men!" and he broke into a prayer to God that was a continuation of his appeal to the men. His pent-up feeling had no other outlet. Before he had prayed many moments Burns was sitting with his face buried in his hands, sobbing. Where were his mother's prayers now? They were adding to the power of the Bishop's. And the other man, harder, less moved, without a previous knowledge of the Bishop, leaned back against the fence, stolid at first. But as the prayer went on, he was moved by it. What force of the Holy Spirit swept over his dulled, brutal, coarsened life, nothing but the eternal records of the recording angel can ever disclose. But the same supernatural Presence that smote Paul on the road to Damascus, and poured through Henry Maxwell's church the morning he asked disciples to follow in Jesus' steps, and had again broken irresistibly over the Nazareth Avenue congregation, now manifested Himself in this foul corner of the mighty city and over the natures of these two sinful sunken men, apparently lost to all the pleadings of conscience and memory and God. The prayer seemed to red open the crust that for years had surrounded them and shut them off from divine communication. And they themselves were thoroughly startled by it. The Bishop ceased, and at first he himself did not realize what had happened. Neither did they. Burns still sat with his head bowed between his knees. The man leaning against the fence looked at the Bishop with a face in which new emotions of awe, repentance, astonishment and a broken gleam of joy struggled for expression. The Bishop rose. "Come, my brothers. God is good. You shall stay at the Settlement tonight, and I will make good my promise as to the work." The two men followed him in silence. When they reached the Settlement it was after two o'clock. He let them in and led them to a room. At the door he paused a moment. His tall, commanding figure stood in the doorway and his pale face was illuminated with the divine glory. "God bless you, my brothers!" he said, and leaving them his benediction he went away. Chapter Twenty-eight IT WAS the afternoon of that morning when Burns was installed in his new position as assistant janitor that he was cleaning off the front steps of the Settlement, when he paused a moment and stood up to look about him. The first thing he noticed was a beer sign just across the alley. He could almost touch it with his broom from where he stood. Over the street immediately opposite were two large saloons, and a little farther down were three more. Suddenly the door of the nearest saloon opened and a man came out. At the same time two more went in. A strong odor of beer floated up to Burns as he stood on the steps. He clutched his broom handle tightly and began to sweep again. He had one foot on the porch and another on the steps just below. He took another step down, still sweeping. The sweat stood on his forehead although the day was frosty and the air chill. The saloon door opened again and three or four men came out. A child went in with a pail, and came out a moment later with a quart of beer. The child went by on the sidewalk just below him, and the odor of the beer came up to him. He took another step down, still sweeping desperately. His fingers were purple as he clutched the handle of the broom. Then suddenly he pulled himself up one step and swept over the spot he had just cleaned. He then dragged himself by a tremendous effort back to the floor of the porch and went over into the corner of it farthest from the saloon and began to sweep there. "O God!" he cried, "if the Bishop would only come back!" The Bishop had gone out with Dr. Bruce somewhere, and there was no one about that he knew. He swept in the corner for two or three minutes. His face was drawn with the agony of his conflict. Gradually he edged out again towards the steps and began to go down them. He looked towards the sidewalk and saw that he had left one step unswept. The sight seemed to give him a reasonable excuse for going down there to finish his sweeping. He was on the sidewalk now, sweeping the last step, with his face towards the Settlement and his back turned partly on the saloon across the alley. He swept the step a dozen times. The sweat rolled over his face and dropped down at his feet. By degrees he felt that he was drawn over towards that end of the step nearest the saloon. He could smell the beer and rum now as the fumes rose around him. It was like the infernal sulphur of the lowest hell, and yet it dragged him as by a giant's hand nearer its source. He was down in the middle of the sidewalk now, still sweeping. He cleared the space in front of the Settlement and even went out into the gutter and swept that. He took off his hat and rubbed his sleeve over his face. His lips were pallid and his teeth chattered. He trembled all over like a palsied man and staggered back and forth as if he was already drunk. His soul shook within him. He had crossed over the little piece of stone flagging that measured the width of the alley, and now he stood in front of the saloon, looking at the sign, and staring into the window at the pile of whiskey and beer bottles arranged in a great pyramid inside. He moistened his lips with his tongue and took a step forward, looking around him stealthily. The door suddenly opened again and someone came out. Again the hot, penetrating smell of liquor swept out into the cold air, and he took another step towards the saloon door which had shut behind the customer. As he laid his fingers on the door handle, a tall figure came around the corner. It was the Bishop. He seized Burns by the arm and dragged him back upon the sidewalk. The frenzied man, now mad for a drink, shrieked out a curse and struck at his friend savagely. It is doubtful if he really knew at first who was snatching him away from his ruin. The blow fell upon the Bishop's face and cut a gash in his cheek. He never uttered a word. But over his face a look of majestic sorrow swept. He picked Burns up as if he had been a child and actually carried him up the steps and into the house. He put him down in the hall and then shut the door and put his back against it. Burns fell on his knees sobbing and praying. The Bishop stood there panting with his exertion, although Burns was a slightly-built man and had not been a great weight for a man of his strength to carry. He was moved with unspeakable pity. "Pray, Burns--pray as you never prayed before! Nothing else will save you!" "O God! Pray with me. Save me! Oh, save me from my hell!" cried Burns. And, the Bishop knelt by him in the hall and prayed as only he could pray. After that they rose and Burns went to his room. He came out of it that evening like a humble child. And the Bishop went his way older from that experience, bearing on his body the marks of the Lord Jesus. Truly he was learning something of what it means to walk in His steps. But the saloon! It stood there, and all the others lined the street like so many traps set for Burns. How long would the man be able to resist the smell of the damnable stuff? The Bishop went out on the porch. The air of the whole city seemed to be impregnated with the odor of beer. "How long, O Lord, how long?" he prayed. Dr. Bruce came out, and the two friends talked about Burns and his temptation. "Did you ever make any inquiries about the ownership of this property adjoining us?" the Bishop asked. "No, I haven't taken time for it. I will now if you think it would be worth while. But what can we do, Edward, against the saloon in this great city? It is as firmly established as the churches or politics. What power can ever remove it?" "God will do it in time, as He has removed slavery," was the grave reply. "Meanwhile I think we have a right to know who controls this saloon so near the Settlement." "I'll find out," said Dr. Bruce. Two days later he walked into the business office of one of the members of Nazareth Avenue Church and asked to see him a few moments. He was cordially received by his old parishioner, who welcomed him into his room and urged him to take all the time he wanted. "I called to see you about that property next the Settlement where the Bishop and myself now are, you know. I am going to speak plainly, because life is too short and too serious for us both to have any foolish hesitation about this matter. Clayton, do you think it is right to rent that property for a saloon?" Dr. Bruce's question was as direct and uncompromising as he had meant it to be. The effect of it on his old parishioner was instantaneous. The hot blood mounted to the face of the man who sat there beneath a picture of business activity in a great city. Then he grew pale, dropped his head on his hands, and when he raised it again Dr. Bruce was amazed to see a tear roll over his face. "Doctor, did you know that I took the pledge that morning with the others?" "Yes, I remember." "But you never knew how I have been tormented over my failure to keep it in this instance. That saloon property has been the temptation of the devil to me. It is the best paying investment at present that I have. And yet it was only a minute before you came in here that I was in an agony of remorse to think how I was letting a little earthly gain tempt me into a denial of the very Christ I had promised to follow. I knew well enough that He would never rent property for such a purpose. There is no need, Dr. Bruce, for you to say a word more." Clayton held out his hand and Dr. Bruce grasped it and shook it hard. After a little he went away. But it was a long time afterwards that he learned all the truth about the struggle that Clayton had known. It was only a part of the history that belonged to Nazareth Avenue Church since that memorable morning when the Holy Spirit sanctioned the Christ-like pledge. Not even the Bishop and Dr. Bruce, moving as they now did in the very presence itself of divine impulses, knew yet that over the whole sinful city the Spirit was brooding with mighty eagerness, waiting for the disciples to arise to the call of sacrifice and suffering, touching hearts long dull and cold, making business men and money-makers uneasy in their absorption by the one great struggle for more wealth, and stirring through the church as never in all the city's history the church had been moved. The Bishop and Dr. Bruce had already seen some wonderful things in their brief life at the Settlement. They were to see far greater soon, more astonishing revelations of the divine power than they had supposed possible in this age of the world. Within a month the saloon next the Settlement was closed. The saloon-keeper's lease had expired, and Clayton not only closed the property to the whiskey men, but offered the building to the Bishop and Dr. Bruce to use for the Settlement work, which had now grown so large that the building they had first rented was not sufficient for the different industries that were planned. One of the most important of these was the pure-food department suggested by Felicia. It was not a month after Clayton turned the saloon property over to the Settlement that Felicia found herself installed in the very room where souls had been lost, as head of the department not only of cooking but of a course of housekeeping for girls who wished to go out to service. She was now a resident of the Settlement, and found a home with Mrs. Bruce and the other young women from the city who were residents. Martha, the violinist, remained at the place where the Bishop had first discovered the two girls, and came over to the Settlement certain evenings to give lessons in music. "Felicia, tell us your plan in full now," said the Bishop one evening when, in a rare interval of rest from the great pressure of work, he was with Dr. Bruce, and Felicia had come in from the other building. "Well, I have long thought of the hired girl problem," said Felicia with an air of wisdom that made Mrs. Bruce smile as she looked at the enthusiastic, vital beauty of this young girl, transformed into a new creature by the promise she had made to live the Christ-like life. "And I have reached certain conclusions in regard to it that you men are not yet able to fathom, but Mrs. Bruce will understand me." "We acknowledge our infancy, Felicia. Go on," said the Bishop humbly. "Then this is what I propose to do. The old saloon building is large enough to arrange into a suite of rooms that will represent an ordinary house. My plan is to have it so arranged, and then teach housekeeping and cooking to girls who will afterwards go out to service. The course will be six months' long; in that time I will teach plain cooking, neatness, quickness, and a love of good work." "Hold on, Felicia!" the Bishop interrupted, "this is not an age of miracles!" "Then we will make it one," replied Felicia. "I know this seems like an impossibility, but I want to try it. I know a score of girls already who will take the course, and if we can once establish something like an esprit de corps among the girls themselves, I am sure it will be of great value to them. I know already that the pure food is working a revolution in many families." "Felicia, if you can accomplish half what you propose it will bless this community," said Mrs. Bruce. "I don't see how you can do it, but I say, God bless you, as you try." "So say we all!" cried Dr. Bruce and the Bishop, and Felicia plunged into the working out of her plan with the enthusiasm of her discipleship which every day grew more and more practical and serviceable. It must be said here that Felicia's plan succeeded beyond all expectations. She developed wonderful powers of persuasion, and taught her girls with astonishing rapidity to do all sorts of housework. In time, the graduates of Felicia's cooking school came to be prized by housekeepers all over the city. But that is anticipating our story. The history of the Settlement has never yet been written. When it is Felicia's part will be found of very great importance. The depth of winter found Chicago presenting, as every great city of the world presents to the eyes of Christendom the marked contrast between riches and poverty, between culture, refinement, luxury, ease, and ignorance, depravity, destitution and the bitter struggle for bread. It was a hard winter but a gay winter. Never had there been such a succession of parties, receptions, balls, dinners, banquets, fetes, gayeties. Never had the opera and the theatre been so crowded with fashionable audiences. Never had there been such a lavish display of jewels and fine dresses and equipages. And on the other hand, never had the deep want and suffering been so cruel, so sharp, so murderous. Never had the winds blown so chilling over the lake and through the thin shells of tenements in the neighborhood of the Settlement. Never had the pressure for food and fuel and clothes been so urgently thrust up against the people of the city in their most importunate and ghastly form. Night after night the Bishop and Dr. Bruce with their helpers went out and helped save men and women and children from the torture of physical privation. Vast quantities of food and clothing and large sums of money were donated by the churches, the charitable societies, the civic authorities and the benevolent associations. But the personal touch of the Christian disciple was very hard to secure for personal work. Where was the discipleship that was obeying the Master's command to go itself to the suffering and give itself with its gift in order to make the gift of value in time to come? The Bishop found his heart sing within him as he faced this fact more than any other. Men would give money who would not think of giving themselves. And the money they gave did not represent any real sacrifice because they did not miss it. They gave what was the easiest to give, what hurt them the least. Where did the sacrifice come in? Was this following Jesus? Was this going with Him all the way? He had been to members of his own aristocratic, splendidly wealthy congregations, and was appalled to find how few men and women of that luxurious class in the churches would really suffer any genuine inconvenience for the sake of suffering humanity. Is charity the giving of worn-out garments? Is it a ten-dollar bill given to a paid visitor or secretary of some benevolent organization in the church? Shall the man never go and give his gift himself? Shall the woman never deny herself her reception or her party or her musicale, and go and actually touch, herself, the foul, sinful sore of diseased humanity as it festers in the great metropolis? Shall charity be conveniently and easily done through some organization? Is it possible to organize the affections so that love shall work disagreeable things by proxy? All this the Bishop asked as he plunged deeper into the sin and sorrow of that bitter winter. He was bearing his cross with joy. But he burned and fought within over the shifting of personal love by the many upon the hearts of the few. And still, silently, powerfully, resistlessly, the Holy Spirit was moving through the churches, even the aristocratic, wealthy, ease-loving members who shunned the terrors of the social problem as they would shun a contagious disease. Chapter Twenty-nine THE breakfast hour at the settlement was the one hour in the day when the whole family found a little breathing space to fellowship together. It was an hour of relaxation. There was a great deal of good-natured repartee and much real wit and enjoyable fun at this hour. The Bishop told his best stories. Dr. Bruce was at his best in anecdote. This company of disciples was healthily humorous in spite of the atmosphere of sorrow that constantly surrounded them. In fact, the Bishop often said the faculty of humor was as God-given as any other and in his own case it was the only safety valve he had for the tremendous pressure put upon him. This particular morning he was reading extracts from a morning paper for the benefit of the others. Suddenly he paused and his face instantly grew stern and sad. The rest looked up and a hush fell over the table. "Shot and killed while taking a lump of coal from a car! His family was freezing and he had had no work for six months. Six children and a wife all packed into a cabin with three rooms, on the West Side. One child wrapped in rags | saw | How many times the word 'saw' appears in the text? | 2 |
uttered an oath at the small amount of change he found. As he uttered it, the man with the pistol savagely said, "Jerk out his watch! We might as well get all we can out of the job!" The man with the stake was on the point of laying hold of the chain where there was a sound of footsteps coming towards him. "Get behind the fence! We haven't half searched him yet! Mind you keep shut now, if you don't want--" The man with the pistol made a significant gesture with it and, with his companion, pulled and pushed the Bishop down the alley and through a ragged, broken opening in the fence. The three stood still there in the shadow until the footsteps passed. "Now, then, have you got the watch?" asked the man with the pistol. "No, the chain is caught somewhere!" and the other man swore again. "Break it then!" "No, don't break it," the Bishop said, and it was the first time he had spoken. "The chain is the gift of a very dear friend. I should be sorry to have it broken." At the sound of the Bishop's voice the man with the pistol started as if he had been suddenly shot by his own weapon. With a quick movement of his other hand he turned the Bishop's head toward's what little light was shining from the alleyway, at the same time taking a step nearer. Then, to the amazement of his companion, he said roughly: "Leave the watch alone! We've got the money. That's enough!" "Enough! Fifty cents! You don't reckon--" Before the man with the stake could say another word he was confronted with the muzzle of the pistol turned from the Bishop's head towards his own. "Leave that watch be! And put back the money too. This is the Bishop we've held up--the Bishop--do you hear?" "And what of it! The President of the United States wouldn't be too good to hold up, if--" "I say, you put the money back, or in five seconds I'll blow a hole through your head that'll let in more sense than you have to spare now!" said the other. For a second the man with the stake seemed to hesitate at this strange turn in events, as if measuring his companion's intention. Then he hastily dropped the money back into the rifled pocket. "You can take your hands down, sir." The man lowered his weapon slowly, still keeping an eye on the other man, and speaking with rough respect. The Bishop slowly brought his arms to his side, and looked earnestly at the two men. In the dim light it was difficult to distinguish features. He was evidently free to go his way now, but he stood there making no movement. "You can go on. You needn't stay any longer on our account." The man who had acted as spokesman turned and sat down on a stone. The other man stood viciously digging his stake into the ground. "That's just what I am staying for," replied the Bishop. He sat down on a board that projected from the broken fence. "You must like our company. It is hard sometimes for people to tear themselves away from us," and the man standing up laughed coarsely. "Shut up!" exclaimed the other. "We're on the road to hell, though, that's sure enough. We need better company than ourselves and the devil." "If you would only allow me to be of any help," the Bishop spoke gently, even lovingly. The man on the stone stared at the Bishop through the darkness. After a moment of silence he spoke slowly like one who had finally decided upon a course he had at first rejected. "Do you remember ever seeing me before?" "No," said the Bishop. "The light is not very good and I have really not had a good look at you." "Do you know me now?" The man suddenly took off his hat and getting up from the stone walked over to the Bishop until they were near enough to touch each other. The man's hair was coal black except one spot on the top of his head about as large as the palm of the hand, which was white. The minute the Bishop saw that, he started. The memory of fifteen years ago began to stir in him. The man helped him. "Don't you remember one day back in '81 or '82 a man came to your house and told a story about his wife and child having been burned to death in a tenement fire in New York?" "Yes, I begin to remember now." The other man seemed to be interested. He ceased digging his stake in the ground and stood still listening. "Do you remember how you took me into your own house that night and spent all next day trying to find me a job? And how when you succeeded in getting me a place in a warehouse as foreman, I promised to quit drinking because you asked me to?" "I remember it now. I hope you have kept your promise." The man laughed savagely. Then he struck his hand against the fence with such sudden passion that he drew blood. "Kept it! I was drunk inside of a week! I've been drinking ever since. But I've never forgotten you nor your prayer. Do you remember the morning after I came to your house, after breakfast you had prayers and asked me to come in and sit with the rest? That got me! But my mother used to pray! I can see her now kneeling down by my bed when I was a lad. Father came in one night and kicked her while she was kneeling there by me. But I never forgot that prayer of yours that morning. You prayed for me just as mother used to, and you didn't seem to take 'count of the fact that I was ragged and tough-looking and more than half drunk when I rang your door bell. Oh, what a life I've lived! The saloon has housed me and homed me and made hell on earth for me. But that prayer stuck to me all the time. My promise not to drink was broken into a thousand pieces inside of two Sundays, and I lost the job you found for me and landed in a police station two days later, but I never forgot you nor your prayer. I don't know what good it has done me, but I never forgot it. And I won't do any harm to you nor let any one else. So you're free to go. That's why." The Bishop did not stir. Somewhere a church clock struck one. The man had put on his hat and gone back to his seat on the stone. The Bishop was thinking hard. "How long is it since you had work?" he asked, and the man standing up answered for the other. "More'n six months since either of us did anything to tell of; unless you count 'holding up' work. I call it pretty wearing kind of a job myself, especially when we put in a night like this and don't make nothin'." "Suppose I found good jobs for both of you? Would you quit this and begin all over?" "What's the use?" the man on the stone spoke sullenly. "I've reformed a hundred times. Every time I go down deeper. The devil's begun to foreclose on me already. It's too late." "No!" said the Bishop. And never before the most entranced audience had he felt the desire for souls burn up in him so strongly. All the time he sat there during the remarkable scene he prayed, "O Lord Jesus, give me the souls of these two for Thee! I am hungry for them. Give them to me!" "No!" the Bishop repeated. "What does God want of you two men? It doesn't so much matter what I want. But He wants just what I do in this case. You two men are of infinite value to Him." And then his wonderful memory came to his aid in an appeal such as no one on earth among men could make under such circumstances. He had remembered the man's name in spite of the wonderfully busy years that lay between his coming to the house and the present moment. "Burns," he said, and he yearned over the men with an unspeakable longing for them both, "if you and your friend here will go home with me tonight I will find you both places of honorable employment. I will believe in you and trust you. You are both comparatively young men. Why should God lose you? It is a great thing to win the love of the Great Father. It is a small thing that I should love you. But if you need to feel again that there is love in the world, you will believe me when I say, my brothers, that I love you, and in the name of Him who was crucified for our sins I cannot bear to see you miss the glory of the human life. Come, be men! Make another try for it, God helping you. No one but God and you and myself need ever know anything of this tonight. He has forgiven it the minute you ask Him to. You will find that true. Come! We'll fight it out together, you two and I. It's worth fighting for, everlasting life is. It was the sinner that Christ came to help. I'll do what I can for you. O God, give me the souls of these two men!" and he broke into a prayer to God that was a continuation of his appeal to the men. His pent-up feeling had no other outlet. Before he had prayed many moments Burns was sitting with his face buried in his hands, sobbing. Where were his mother's prayers now? They were adding to the power of the Bishop's. And the other man, harder, less moved, without a previous knowledge of the Bishop, leaned back against the fence, stolid at first. But as the prayer went on, he was moved by it. What force of the Holy Spirit swept over his dulled, brutal, coarsened life, nothing but the eternal records of the recording angel can ever disclose. But the same supernatural Presence that smote Paul on the road to Damascus, and poured through Henry Maxwell's church the morning he asked disciples to follow in Jesus' steps, and had again broken irresistibly over the Nazareth Avenue congregation, now manifested Himself in this foul corner of the mighty city and over the natures of these two sinful sunken men, apparently lost to all the pleadings of conscience and memory and God. The prayer seemed to red open the crust that for years had surrounded them and shut them off from divine communication. And they themselves were thoroughly startled by it. The Bishop ceased, and at first he himself did not realize what had happened. Neither did they. Burns still sat with his head bowed between his knees. The man leaning against the fence looked at the Bishop with a face in which new emotions of awe, repentance, astonishment and a broken gleam of joy struggled for expression. The Bishop rose. "Come, my brothers. God is good. You shall stay at the Settlement tonight, and I will make good my promise as to the work." The two men followed him in silence. When they reached the Settlement it was after two o'clock. He let them in and led them to a room. At the door he paused a moment. His tall, commanding figure stood in the doorway and his pale face was illuminated with the divine glory. "God bless you, my brothers!" he said, and leaving them his benediction he went away. Chapter Twenty-eight IT WAS the afternoon of that morning when Burns was installed in his new position as assistant janitor that he was cleaning off the front steps of the Settlement, when he paused a moment and stood up to look about him. The first thing he noticed was a beer sign just across the alley. He could almost touch it with his broom from where he stood. Over the street immediately opposite were two large saloons, and a little farther down were three more. Suddenly the door of the nearest saloon opened and a man came out. At the same time two more went in. A strong odor of beer floated up to Burns as he stood on the steps. He clutched his broom handle tightly and began to sweep again. He had one foot on the porch and another on the steps just below. He took another step down, still sweeping. The sweat stood on his forehead although the day was frosty and the air chill. The saloon door opened again and three or four men came out. A child went in with a pail, and came out a moment later with a quart of beer. The child went by on the sidewalk just below him, and the odor of the beer came up to him. He took another step down, still sweeping desperately. His fingers were purple as he clutched the handle of the broom. Then suddenly he pulled himself up one step and swept over the spot he had just cleaned. He then dragged himself by a tremendous effort back to the floor of the porch and went over into the corner of it farthest from the saloon and began to sweep there. "O God!" he cried, "if the Bishop would only come back!" The Bishop had gone out with Dr. Bruce somewhere, and there was no one about that he knew. He swept in the corner for two or three minutes. His face was drawn with the agony of his conflict. Gradually he edged out again towards the steps and began to go down them. He looked towards the sidewalk and saw that he had left one step unswept. The sight seemed to give him a reasonable excuse for going down there to finish his sweeping. He was on the sidewalk now, sweeping the last step, with his face towards the Settlement and his back turned partly on the saloon across the alley. He swept the step a dozen times. The sweat rolled over his face and dropped down at his feet. By degrees he felt that he was drawn over towards that end of the step nearest the saloon. He could smell the beer and rum now as the fumes rose around him. It was like the infernal sulphur of the lowest hell, and yet it dragged him as by a giant's hand nearer its source. He was down in the middle of the sidewalk now, still sweeping. He cleared the space in front of the Settlement and even went out into the gutter and swept that. He took off his hat and rubbed his sleeve over his face. His lips were pallid and his teeth chattered. He trembled all over like a palsied man and staggered back and forth as if he was already drunk. His soul shook within him. He had crossed over the little piece of stone flagging that measured the width of the alley, and now he stood in front of the saloon, looking at the sign, and staring into the window at the pile of whiskey and beer bottles arranged in a great pyramid inside. He moistened his lips with his tongue and took a step forward, looking around him stealthily. The door suddenly opened again and someone came out. Again the hot, penetrating smell of liquor swept out into the cold air, and he took another step towards the saloon door which had shut behind the customer. As he laid his fingers on the door handle, a tall figure came around the corner. It was the Bishop. He seized Burns by the arm and dragged him back upon the sidewalk. The frenzied man, now mad for a drink, shrieked out a curse and struck at his friend savagely. It is doubtful if he really knew at first who was snatching him away from his ruin. The blow fell upon the Bishop's face and cut a gash in his cheek. He never uttered a word. But over his face a look of majestic sorrow swept. He picked Burns up as if he had been a child and actually carried him up the steps and into the house. He put him down in the hall and then shut the door and put his back against it. Burns fell on his knees sobbing and praying. The Bishop stood there panting with his exertion, although Burns was a slightly-built man and had not been a great weight for a man of his strength to carry. He was moved with unspeakable pity. "Pray, Burns--pray as you never prayed before! Nothing else will save you!" "O God! Pray with me. Save me! Oh, save me from my hell!" cried Burns. And, the Bishop knelt by him in the hall and prayed as only he could pray. After that they rose and Burns went to his room. He came out of it that evening like a humble child. And the Bishop went his way older from that experience, bearing on his body the marks of the Lord Jesus. Truly he was learning something of what it means to walk in His steps. But the saloon! It stood there, and all the others lined the street like so many traps set for Burns. How long would the man be able to resist the smell of the damnable stuff? The Bishop went out on the porch. The air of the whole city seemed to be impregnated with the odor of beer. "How long, O Lord, how long?" he prayed. Dr. Bruce came out, and the two friends talked about Burns and his temptation. "Did you ever make any inquiries about the ownership of this property adjoining us?" the Bishop asked. "No, I haven't taken time for it. I will now if you think it would be worth while. But what can we do, Edward, against the saloon in this great city? It is as firmly established as the churches or politics. What power can ever remove it?" "God will do it in time, as He has removed slavery," was the grave reply. "Meanwhile I think we have a right to know who controls this saloon so near the Settlement." "I'll find out," said Dr. Bruce. Two days later he walked into the business office of one of the members of Nazareth Avenue Church and asked to see him a few moments. He was cordially received by his old parishioner, who welcomed him into his room and urged him to take all the time he wanted. "I called to see you about that property next the Settlement where the Bishop and myself now are, you know. I am going to speak plainly, because life is too short and too serious for us both to have any foolish hesitation about this matter. Clayton, do you think it is right to rent that property for a saloon?" Dr. Bruce's question was as direct and uncompromising as he had meant it to be. The effect of it on his old parishioner was instantaneous. The hot blood mounted to the face of the man who sat there beneath a picture of business activity in a great city. Then he grew pale, dropped his head on his hands, and when he raised it again Dr. Bruce was amazed to see a tear roll over his face. "Doctor, did you know that I took the pledge that morning with the others?" "Yes, I remember." "But you never knew how I have been tormented over my failure to keep it in this instance. That saloon property has been the temptation of the devil to me. It is the best paying investment at present that I have. And yet it was only a minute before you came in here that I was in an agony of remorse to think how I was letting a little earthly gain tempt me into a denial of the very Christ I had promised to follow. I knew well enough that He would never rent property for such a purpose. There is no need, Dr. Bruce, for you to say a word more." Clayton held out his hand and Dr. Bruce grasped it and shook it hard. After a little he went away. But it was a long time afterwards that he learned all the truth about the struggle that Clayton had known. It was only a part of the history that belonged to Nazareth Avenue Church since that memorable morning when the Holy Spirit sanctioned the Christ-like pledge. Not even the Bishop and Dr. Bruce, moving as they now did in the very presence itself of divine impulses, knew yet that over the whole sinful city the Spirit was brooding with mighty eagerness, waiting for the disciples to arise to the call of sacrifice and suffering, touching hearts long dull and cold, making business men and money-makers uneasy in their absorption by the one great struggle for more wealth, and stirring through the church as never in all the city's history the church had been moved. The Bishop and Dr. Bruce had already seen some wonderful things in their brief life at the Settlement. They were to see far greater soon, more astonishing revelations of the divine power than they had supposed possible in this age of the world. Within a month the saloon next the Settlement was closed. The saloon-keeper's lease had expired, and Clayton not only closed the property to the whiskey men, but offered the building to the Bishop and Dr. Bruce to use for the Settlement work, which had now grown so large that the building they had first rented was not sufficient for the different industries that were planned. One of the most important of these was the pure-food department suggested by Felicia. It was not a month after Clayton turned the saloon property over to the Settlement that Felicia found herself installed in the very room where souls had been lost, as head of the department not only of cooking but of a course of housekeeping for girls who wished to go out to service. She was now a resident of the Settlement, and found a home with Mrs. Bruce and the other young women from the city who were residents. Martha, the violinist, remained at the place where the Bishop had first discovered the two girls, and came over to the Settlement certain evenings to give lessons in music. "Felicia, tell us your plan in full now," said the Bishop one evening when, in a rare interval of rest from the great pressure of work, he was with Dr. Bruce, and Felicia had come in from the other building. "Well, I have long thought of the hired girl problem," said Felicia with an air of wisdom that made Mrs. Bruce smile as she looked at the enthusiastic, vital beauty of this young girl, transformed into a new creature by the promise she had made to live the Christ-like life. "And I have reached certain conclusions in regard to it that you men are not yet able to fathom, but Mrs. Bruce will understand me." "We acknowledge our infancy, Felicia. Go on," said the Bishop humbly. "Then this is what I propose to do. The old saloon building is large enough to arrange into a suite of rooms that will represent an ordinary house. My plan is to have it so arranged, and then teach housekeeping and cooking to girls who will afterwards go out to service. The course will be six months' long; in that time I will teach plain cooking, neatness, quickness, and a love of good work." "Hold on, Felicia!" the Bishop interrupted, "this is not an age of miracles!" "Then we will make it one," replied Felicia. "I know this seems like an impossibility, but I want to try it. I know a score of girls already who will take the course, and if we can once establish something like an esprit de corps among the girls themselves, I am sure it will be of great value to them. I know already that the pure food is working a revolution in many families." "Felicia, if you can accomplish half what you propose it will bless this community," said Mrs. Bruce. "I don't see how you can do it, but I say, God bless you, as you try." "So say we all!" cried Dr. Bruce and the Bishop, and Felicia plunged into the working out of her plan with the enthusiasm of her discipleship which every day grew more and more practical and serviceable. It must be said here that Felicia's plan succeeded beyond all expectations. She developed wonderful powers of persuasion, and taught her girls with astonishing rapidity to do all sorts of housework. In time, the graduates of Felicia's cooking school came to be prized by housekeepers all over the city. But that is anticipating our story. The history of the Settlement has never yet been written. When it is Felicia's part will be found of very great importance. The depth of winter found Chicago presenting, as every great city of the world presents to the eyes of Christendom the marked contrast between riches and poverty, between culture, refinement, luxury, ease, and ignorance, depravity, destitution and the bitter struggle for bread. It was a hard winter but a gay winter. Never had there been such a succession of parties, receptions, balls, dinners, banquets, fetes, gayeties. Never had the opera and the theatre been so crowded with fashionable audiences. Never had there been such a lavish display of jewels and fine dresses and equipages. And on the other hand, never had the deep want and suffering been so cruel, so sharp, so murderous. Never had the winds blown so chilling over the lake and through the thin shells of tenements in the neighborhood of the Settlement. Never had the pressure for food and fuel and clothes been so urgently thrust up against the people of the city in their most importunate and ghastly form. Night after night the Bishop and Dr. Bruce with their helpers went out and helped save men and women and children from the torture of physical privation. Vast quantities of food and clothing and large sums of money were donated by the churches, the charitable societies, the civic authorities and the benevolent associations. But the personal touch of the Christian disciple was very hard to secure for personal work. Where was the discipleship that was obeying the Master's command to go itself to the suffering and give itself with its gift in order to make the gift of value in time to come? The Bishop found his heart sing within him as he faced this fact more than any other. Men would give money who would not think of giving themselves. And the money they gave did not represent any real sacrifice because they did not miss it. They gave what was the easiest to give, what hurt them the least. Where did the sacrifice come in? Was this following Jesus? Was this going with Him all the way? He had been to members of his own aristocratic, splendidly wealthy congregations, and was appalled to find how few men and women of that luxurious class in the churches would really suffer any genuine inconvenience for the sake of suffering humanity. Is charity the giving of worn-out garments? Is it a ten-dollar bill given to a paid visitor or secretary of some benevolent organization in the church? Shall the man never go and give his gift himself? Shall the woman never deny herself her reception or her party or her musicale, and go and actually touch, herself, the foul, sinful sore of diseased humanity as it festers in the great metropolis? Shall charity be conveniently and easily done through some organization? Is it possible to organize the affections so that love shall work disagreeable things by proxy? All this the Bishop asked as he plunged deeper into the sin and sorrow of that bitter winter. He was bearing his cross with joy. But he burned and fought within over the shifting of personal love by the many upon the hearts of the few. And still, silently, powerfully, resistlessly, the Holy Spirit was moving through the churches, even the aristocratic, wealthy, ease-loving members who shunned the terrors of the social problem as they would shun a contagious disease. Chapter Twenty-nine THE breakfast hour at the settlement was the one hour in the day when the whole family found a little breathing space to fellowship together. It was an hour of relaxation. There was a great deal of good-natured repartee and much real wit and enjoyable fun at this hour. The Bishop told his best stories. Dr. Bruce was at his best in anecdote. This company of disciples was healthily humorous in spite of the atmosphere of sorrow that constantly surrounded them. In fact, the Bishop often said the faculty of humor was as God-given as any other and in his own case it was the only safety valve he had for the tremendous pressure put upon him. This particular morning he was reading extracts from a morning paper for the benefit of the others. Suddenly he paused and his face instantly grew stern and sad. The rest looked up and a hush fell over the table. "Shot and killed while taking a lump of coal from a car! His family was freezing and he had had no work for six months. Six children and a wife all packed into a cabin with three rooms, on the West Side. One child wrapped in rags | struck | How many times the word 'struck' appears in the text? | 3 |
uttered an oath at the small amount of change he found. As he uttered it, the man with the pistol savagely said, "Jerk out his watch! We might as well get all we can out of the job!" The man with the stake was on the point of laying hold of the chain where there was a sound of footsteps coming towards him. "Get behind the fence! We haven't half searched him yet! Mind you keep shut now, if you don't want--" The man with the pistol made a significant gesture with it and, with his companion, pulled and pushed the Bishop down the alley and through a ragged, broken opening in the fence. The three stood still there in the shadow until the footsteps passed. "Now, then, have you got the watch?" asked the man with the pistol. "No, the chain is caught somewhere!" and the other man swore again. "Break it then!" "No, don't break it," the Bishop said, and it was the first time he had spoken. "The chain is the gift of a very dear friend. I should be sorry to have it broken." At the sound of the Bishop's voice the man with the pistol started as if he had been suddenly shot by his own weapon. With a quick movement of his other hand he turned the Bishop's head toward's what little light was shining from the alleyway, at the same time taking a step nearer. Then, to the amazement of his companion, he said roughly: "Leave the watch alone! We've got the money. That's enough!" "Enough! Fifty cents! You don't reckon--" Before the man with the stake could say another word he was confronted with the muzzle of the pistol turned from the Bishop's head towards his own. "Leave that watch be! And put back the money too. This is the Bishop we've held up--the Bishop--do you hear?" "And what of it! The President of the United States wouldn't be too good to hold up, if--" "I say, you put the money back, or in five seconds I'll blow a hole through your head that'll let in more sense than you have to spare now!" said the other. For a second the man with the stake seemed to hesitate at this strange turn in events, as if measuring his companion's intention. Then he hastily dropped the money back into the rifled pocket. "You can take your hands down, sir." The man lowered his weapon slowly, still keeping an eye on the other man, and speaking with rough respect. The Bishop slowly brought his arms to his side, and looked earnestly at the two men. In the dim light it was difficult to distinguish features. He was evidently free to go his way now, but he stood there making no movement. "You can go on. You needn't stay any longer on our account." The man who had acted as spokesman turned and sat down on a stone. The other man stood viciously digging his stake into the ground. "That's just what I am staying for," replied the Bishop. He sat down on a board that projected from the broken fence. "You must like our company. It is hard sometimes for people to tear themselves away from us," and the man standing up laughed coarsely. "Shut up!" exclaimed the other. "We're on the road to hell, though, that's sure enough. We need better company than ourselves and the devil." "If you would only allow me to be of any help," the Bishop spoke gently, even lovingly. The man on the stone stared at the Bishop through the darkness. After a moment of silence he spoke slowly like one who had finally decided upon a course he had at first rejected. "Do you remember ever seeing me before?" "No," said the Bishop. "The light is not very good and I have really not had a good look at you." "Do you know me now?" The man suddenly took off his hat and getting up from the stone walked over to the Bishop until they were near enough to touch each other. The man's hair was coal black except one spot on the top of his head about as large as the palm of the hand, which was white. The minute the Bishop saw that, he started. The memory of fifteen years ago began to stir in him. The man helped him. "Don't you remember one day back in '81 or '82 a man came to your house and told a story about his wife and child having been burned to death in a tenement fire in New York?" "Yes, I begin to remember now." The other man seemed to be interested. He ceased digging his stake in the ground and stood still listening. "Do you remember how you took me into your own house that night and spent all next day trying to find me a job? And how when you succeeded in getting me a place in a warehouse as foreman, I promised to quit drinking because you asked me to?" "I remember it now. I hope you have kept your promise." The man laughed savagely. Then he struck his hand against the fence with such sudden passion that he drew blood. "Kept it! I was drunk inside of a week! I've been drinking ever since. But I've never forgotten you nor your prayer. Do you remember the morning after I came to your house, after breakfast you had prayers and asked me to come in and sit with the rest? That got me! But my mother used to pray! I can see her now kneeling down by my bed when I was a lad. Father came in one night and kicked her while she was kneeling there by me. But I never forgot that prayer of yours that morning. You prayed for me just as mother used to, and you didn't seem to take 'count of the fact that I was ragged and tough-looking and more than half drunk when I rang your door bell. Oh, what a life I've lived! The saloon has housed me and homed me and made hell on earth for me. But that prayer stuck to me all the time. My promise not to drink was broken into a thousand pieces inside of two Sundays, and I lost the job you found for me and landed in a police station two days later, but I never forgot you nor your prayer. I don't know what good it has done me, but I never forgot it. And I won't do any harm to you nor let any one else. So you're free to go. That's why." The Bishop did not stir. Somewhere a church clock struck one. The man had put on his hat and gone back to his seat on the stone. The Bishop was thinking hard. "How long is it since you had work?" he asked, and the man standing up answered for the other. "More'n six months since either of us did anything to tell of; unless you count 'holding up' work. I call it pretty wearing kind of a job myself, especially when we put in a night like this and don't make nothin'." "Suppose I found good jobs for both of you? Would you quit this and begin all over?" "What's the use?" the man on the stone spoke sullenly. "I've reformed a hundred times. Every time I go down deeper. The devil's begun to foreclose on me already. It's too late." "No!" said the Bishop. And never before the most entranced audience had he felt the desire for souls burn up in him so strongly. All the time he sat there during the remarkable scene he prayed, "O Lord Jesus, give me the souls of these two for Thee! I am hungry for them. Give them to me!" "No!" the Bishop repeated. "What does God want of you two men? It doesn't so much matter what I want. But He wants just what I do in this case. You two men are of infinite value to Him." And then his wonderful memory came to his aid in an appeal such as no one on earth among men could make under such circumstances. He had remembered the man's name in spite of the wonderfully busy years that lay between his coming to the house and the present moment. "Burns," he said, and he yearned over the men with an unspeakable longing for them both, "if you and your friend here will go home with me tonight I will find you both places of honorable employment. I will believe in you and trust you. You are both comparatively young men. Why should God lose you? It is a great thing to win the love of the Great Father. It is a small thing that I should love you. But if you need to feel again that there is love in the world, you will believe me when I say, my brothers, that I love you, and in the name of Him who was crucified for our sins I cannot bear to see you miss the glory of the human life. Come, be men! Make another try for it, God helping you. No one but God and you and myself need ever know anything of this tonight. He has forgiven it the minute you ask Him to. You will find that true. Come! We'll fight it out together, you two and I. It's worth fighting for, everlasting life is. It was the sinner that Christ came to help. I'll do what I can for you. O God, give me the souls of these two men!" and he broke into a prayer to God that was a continuation of his appeal to the men. His pent-up feeling had no other outlet. Before he had prayed many moments Burns was sitting with his face buried in his hands, sobbing. Where were his mother's prayers now? They were adding to the power of the Bishop's. And the other man, harder, less moved, without a previous knowledge of the Bishop, leaned back against the fence, stolid at first. But as the prayer went on, he was moved by it. What force of the Holy Spirit swept over his dulled, brutal, coarsened life, nothing but the eternal records of the recording angel can ever disclose. But the same supernatural Presence that smote Paul on the road to Damascus, and poured through Henry Maxwell's church the morning he asked disciples to follow in Jesus' steps, and had again broken irresistibly over the Nazareth Avenue congregation, now manifested Himself in this foul corner of the mighty city and over the natures of these two sinful sunken men, apparently lost to all the pleadings of conscience and memory and God. The prayer seemed to red open the crust that for years had surrounded them and shut them off from divine communication. And they themselves were thoroughly startled by it. The Bishop ceased, and at first he himself did not realize what had happened. Neither did they. Burns still sat with his head bowed between his knees. The man leaning against the fence looked at the Bishop with a face in which new emotions of awe, repentance, astonishment and a broken gleam of joy struggled for expression. The Bishop rose. "Come, my brothers. God is good. You shall stay at the Settlement tonight, and I will make good my promise as to the work." The two men followed him in silence. When they reached the Settlement it was after two o'clock. He let them in and led them to a room. At the door he paused a moment. His tall, commanding figure stood in the doorway and his pale face was illuminated with the divine glory. "God bless you, my brothers!" he said, and leaving them his benediction he went away. Chapter Twenty-eight IT WAS the afternoon of that morning when Burns was installed in his new position as assistant janitor that he was cleaning off the front steps of the Settlement, when he paused a moment and stood up to look about him. The first thing he noticed was a beer sign just across the alley. He could almost touch it with his broom from where he stood. Over the street immediately opposite were two large saloons, and a little farther down were three more. Suddenly the door of the nearest saloon opened and a man came out. At the same time two more went in. A strong odor of beer floated up to Burns as he stood on the steps. He clutched his broom handle tightly and began to sweep again. He had one foot on the porch and another on the steps just below. He took another step down, still sweeping. The sweat stood on his forehead although the day was frosty and the air chill. The saloon door opened again and three or four men came out. A child went in with a pail, and came out a moment later with a quart of beer. The child went by on the sidewalk just below him, and the odor of the beer came up to him. He took another step down, still sweeping desperately. His fingers were purple as he clutched the handle of the broom. Then suddenly he pulled himself up one step and swept over the spot he had just cleaned. He then dragged himself by a tremendous effort back to the floor of the porch and went over into the corner of it farthest from the saloon and began to sweep there. "O God!" he cried, "if the Bishop would only come back!" The Bishop had gone out with Dr. Bruce somewhere, and there was no one about that he knew. He swept in the corner for two or three minutes. His face was drawn with the agony of his conflict. Gradually he edged out again towards the steps and began to go down them. He looked towards the sidewalk and saw that he had left one step unswept. The sight seemed to give him a reasonable excuse for going down there to finish his sweeping. He was on the sidewalk now, sweeping the last step, with his face towards the Settlement and his back turned partly on the saloon across the alley. He swept the step a dozen times. The sweat rolled over his face and dropped down at his feet. By degrees he felt that he was drawn over towards that end of the step nearest the saloon. He could smell the beer and rum now as the fumes rose around him. It was like the infernal sulphur of the lowest hell, and yet it dragged him as by a giant's hand nearer its source. He was down in the middle of the sidewalk now, still sweeping. He cleared the space in front of the Settlement and even went out into the gutter and swept that. He took off his hat and rubbed his sleeve over his face. His lips were pallid and his teeth chattered. He trembled all over like a palsied man and staggered back and forth as if he was already drunk. His soul shook within him. He had crossed over the little piece of stone flagging that measured the width of the alley, and now he stood in front of the saloon, looking at the sign, and staring into the window at the pile of whiskey and beer bottles arranged in a great pyramid inside. He moistened his lips with his tongue and took a step forward, looking around him stealthily. The door suddenly opened again and someone came out. Again the hot, penetrating smell of liquor swept out into the cold air, and he took another step towards the saloon door which had shut behind the customer. As he laid his fingers on the door handle, a tall figure came around the corner. It was the Bishop. He seized Burns by the arm and dragged him back upon the sidewalk. The frenzied man, now mad for a drink, shrieked out a curse and struck at his friend savagely. It is doubtful if he really knew at first who was snatching him away from his ruin. The blow fell upon the Bishop's face and cut a gash in his cheek. He never uttered a word. But over his face a look of majestic sorrow swept. He picked Burns up as if he had been a child and actually carried him up the steps and into the house. He put him down in the hall and then shut the door and put his back against it. Burns fell on his knees sobbing and praying. The Bishop stood there panting with his exertion, although Burns was a slightly-built man and had not been a great weight for a man of his strength to carry. He was moved with unspeakable pity. "Pray, Burns--pray as you never prayed before! Nothing else will save you!" "O God! Pray with me. Save me! Oh, save me from my hell!" cried Burns. And, the Bishop knelt by him in the hall and prayed as only he could pray. After that they rose and Burns went to his room. He came out of it that evening like a humble child. And the Bishop went his way older from that experience, bearing on his body the marks of the Lord Jesus. Truly he was learning something of what it means to walk in His steps. But the saloon! It stood there, and all the others lined the street like so many traps set for Burns. How long would the man be able to resist the smell of the damnable stuff? The Bishop went out on the porch. The air of the whole city seemed to be impregnated with the odor of beer. "How long, O Lord, how long?" he prayed. Dr. Bruce came out, and the two friends talked about Burns and his temptation. "Did you ever make any inquiries about the ownership of this property adjoining us?" the Bishop asked. "No, I haven't taken time for it. I will now if you think it would be worth while. But what can we do, Edward, against the saloon in this great city? It is as firmly established as the churches or politics. What power can ever remove it?" "God will do it in time, as He has removed slavery," was the grave reply. "Meanwhile I think we have a right to know who controls this saloon so near the Settlement." "I'll find out," said Dr. Bruce. Two days later he walked into the business office of one of the members of Nazareth Avenue Church and asked to see him a few moments. He was cordially received by his old parishioner, who welcomed him into his room and urged him to take all the time he wanted. "I called to see you about that property next the Settlement where the Bishop and myself now are, you know. I am going to speak plainly, because life is too short and too serious for us both to have any foolish hesitation about this matter. Clayton, do you think it is right to rent that property for a saloon?" Dr. Bruce's question was as direct and uncompromising as he had meant it to be. The effect of it on his old parishioner was instantaneous. The hot blood mounted to the face of the man who sat there beneath a picture of business activity in a great city. Then he grew pale, dropped his head on his hands, and when he raised it again Dr. Bruce was amazed to see a tear roll over his face. "Doctor, did you know that I took the pledge that morning with the others?" "Yes, I remember." "But you never knew how I have been tormented over my failure to keep it in this instance. That saloon property has been the temptation of the devil to me. It is the best paying investment at present that I have. And yet it was only a minute before you came in here that I was in an agony of remorse to think how I was letting a little earthly gain tempt me into a denial of the very Christ I had promised to follow. I knew well enough that He would never rent property for such a purpose. There is no need, Dr. Bruce, for you to say a word more." Clayton held out his hand and Dr. Bruce grasped it and shook it hard. After a little he went away. But it was a long time afterwards that he learned all the truth about the struggle that Clayton had known. It was only a part of the history that belonged to Nazareth Avenue Church since that memorable morning when the Holy Spirit sanctioned the Christ-like pledge. Not even the Bishop and Dr. Bruce, moving as they now did in the very presence itself of divine impulses, knew yet that over the whole sinful city the Spirit was brooding with mighty eagerness, waiting for the disciples to arise to the call of sacrifice and suffering, touching hearts long dull and cold, making business men and money-makers uneasy in their absorption by the one great struggle for more wealth, and stirring through the church as never in all the city's history the church had been moved. The Bishop and Dr. Bruce had already seen some wonderful things in their brief life at the Settlement. They were to see far greater soon, more astonishing revelations of the divine power than they had supposed possible in this age of the world. Within a month the saloon next the Settlement was closed. The saloon-keeper's lease had expired, and Clayton not only closed the property to the whiskey men, but offered the building to the Bishop and Dr. Bruce to use for the Settlement work, which had now grown so large that the building they had first rented was not sufficient for the different industries that were planned. One of the most important of these was the pure-food department suggested by Felicia. It was not a month after Clayton turned the saloon property over to the Settlement that Felicia found herself installed in the very room where souls had been lost, as head of the department not only of cooking but of a course of housekeeping for girls who wished to go out to service. She was now a resident of the Settlement, and found a home with Mrs. Bruce and the other young women from the city who were residents. Martha, the violinist, remained at the place where the Bishop had first discovered the two girls, and came over to the Settlement certain evenings to give lessons in music. "Felicia, tell us your plan in full now," said the Bishop one evening when, in a rare interval of rest from the great pressure of work, he was with Dr. Bruce, and Felicia had come in from the other building. "Well, I have long thought of the hired girl problem," said Felicia with an air of wisdom that made Mrs. Bruce smile as she looked at the enthusiastic, vital beauty of this young girl, transformed into a new creature by the promise she had made to live the Christ-like life. "And I have reached certain conclusions in regard to it that you men are not yet able to fathom, but Mrs. Bruce will understand me." "We acknowledge our infancy, Felicia. Go on," said the Bishop humbly. "Then this is what I propose to do. The old saloon building is large enough to arrange into a suite of rooms that will represent an ordinary house. My plan is to have it so arranged, and then teach housekeeping and cooking to girls who will afterwards go out to service. The course will be six months' long; in that time I will teach plain cooking, neatness, quickness, and a love of good work." "Hold on, Felicia!" the Bishop interrupted, "this is not an age of miracles!" "Then we will make it one," replied Felicia. "I know this seems like an impossibility, but I want to try it. I know a score of girls already who will take the course, and if we can once establish something like an esprit de corps among the girls themselves, I am sure it will be of great value to them. I know already that the pure food is working a revolution in many families." "Felicia, if you can accomplish half what you propose it will bless this community," said Mrs. Bruce. "I don't see how you can do it, but I say, God bless you, as you try." "So say we all!" cried Dr. Bruce and the Bishop, and Felicia plunged into the working out of her plan with the enthusiasm of her discipleship which every day grew more and more practical and serviceable. It must be said here that Felicia's plan succeeded beyond all expectations. She developed wonderful powers of persuasion, and taught her girls with astonishing rapidity to do all sorts of housework. In time, the graduates of Felicia's cooking school came to be prized by housekeepers all over the city. But that is anticipating our story. The history of the Settlement has never yet been written. When it is Felicia's part will be found of very great importance. The depth of winter found Chicago presenting, as every great city of the world presents to the eyes of Christendom the marked contrast between riches and poverty, between culture, refinement, luxury, ease, and ignorance, depravity, destitution and the bitter struggle for bread. It was a hard winter but a gay winter. Never had there been such a succession of parties, receptions, balls, dinners, banquets, fetes, gayeties. Never had the opera and the theatre been so crowded with fashionable audiences. Never had there been such a lavish display of jewels and fine dresses and equipages. And on the other hand, never had the deep want and suffering been so cruel, so sharp, so murderous. Never had the winds blown so chilling over the lake and through the thin shells of tenements in the neighborhood of the Settlement. Never had the pressure for food and fuel and clothes been so urgently thrust up against the people of the city in their most importunate and ghastly form. Night after night the Bishop and Dr. Bruce with their helpers went out and helped save men and women and children from the torture of physical privation. Vast quantities of food and clothing and large sums of money were donated by the churches, the charitable societies, the civic authorities and the benevolent associations. But the personal touch of the Christian disciple was very hard to secure for personal work. Where was the discipleship that was obeying the Master's command to go itself to the suffering and give itself with its gift in order to make the gift of value in time to come? The Bishop found his heart sing within him as he faced this fact more than any other. Men would give money who would not think of giving themselves. And the money they gave did not represent any real sacrifice because they did not miss it. They gave what was the easiest to give, what hurt them the least. Where did the sacrifice come in? Was this following Jesus? Was this going with Him all the way? He had been to members of his own aristocratic, splendidly wealthy congregations, and was appalled to find how few men and women of that luxurious class in the churches would really suffer any genuine inconvenience for the sake of suffering humanity. Is charity the giving of worn-out garments? Is it a ten-dollar bill given to a paid visitor or secretary of some benevolent organization in the church? Shall the man never go and give his gift himself? Shall the woman never deny herself her reception or her party or her musicale, and go and actually touch, herself, the foul, sinful sore of diseased humanity as it festers in the great metropolis? Shall charity be conveniently and easily done through some organization? Is it possible to organize the affections so that love shall work disagreeable things by proxy? All this the Bishop asked as he plunged deeper into the sin and sorrow of that bitter winter. He was bearing his cross with joy. But he burned and fought within over the shifting of personal love by the many upon the hearts of the few. And still, silently, powerfully, resistlessly, the Holy Spirit was moving through the churches, even the aristocratic, wealthy, ease-loving members who shunned the terrors of the social problem as they would shun a contagious disease. Chapter Twenty-nine THE breakfast hour at the settlement was the one hour in the day when the whole family found a little breathing space to fellowship together. It was an hour of relaxation. There was a great deal of good-natured repartee and much real wit and enjoyable fun at this hour. The Bishop told his best stories. Dr. Bruce was at his best in anecdote. This company of disciples was healthily humorous in spite of the atmosphere of sorrow that constantly surrounded them. In fact, the Bishop often said the faculty of humor was as God-given as any other and in his own case it was the only safety valve he had for the tremendous pressure put upon him. This particular morning he was reading extracts from a morning paper for the benefit of the others. Suddenly he paused and his face instantly grew stern and sad. The rest looked up and a hush fell over the table. "Shot and killed while taking a lump of coal from a car! His family was freezing and he had had no work for six months. Six children and a wife all packed into a cabin with three rooms, on the West Side. One child wrapped in rags | pieces | How many times the word 'pieces' appears in the text? | 1 |
ventured a step nearer and continued his observations. As he did so, he made a discovery. The soft white of her cheek was gradually becoming pinker and pinker; the color which began under her lace collar stole up and up until it reached her eyes, which still gazed determinedly before her. Sandy admired it as a traveler admires a sunrise, and with as little idea of having caused it. The line of passengers moved slowly forward, and his heart sank. Suddenly his eyes fell upon the little hand-bag which she carried. On one end, in small white letters, was: "Ruth Nelson, Kentucky, U.S.A." He watched her until she was lost to view, then he turned eagerly back into the crowd. Elbowing his way forward, he seized Ricks by the arm. "Hi, there!" he cried; "I've changed me mind. I'm goin' with you to Kentucky!" So this impetuous knight errant enlisted under the will-o'-the-wisp love, and started joyously forth upon his quest. CHAPTER III THE CURSE OF WEALTH It is an oft-proved adage that for ten who can stand adversity there is but one who can stand prosperity. Sandy, alas! was no exception to any rule which went to prove the frailty of human nature. The sudden acquisition of ten dollars cast him into a whirlpool of temptation from which he made little effort to escape. "I ain't goin' on to-day," announced Ricks. "I'm goin' to lay in my goods for peddlin'. I reckon you kin come along of me." Sandy accepted a long and strong cigar, tilted his hat, and unconsciously caught Ricks's slouching gait as they went down the street. After all, it was rather pleasant to associate with sophistication. "We'll git on the outside of a little dinner," said Ricks; "and I'll mosey round in the stores awhile, then I'll take you to a show or two. It's a mighty good thing for you that you got me along." Sandy thought so too. He cheerfully stood treat for the rest of the day, and felt that it was small return for Ricks's condescension. "How much you got left?" asked Ricks, that night, as they stopped under a street light to take stock. Sandy held out a couple of dollars and a fifty-cent piece. "Enough to put on the eyes of two and a half dead men," he said as he curiously eyed the strange money. "One, two,--two and a half," counted Ricks. "Shillings?" asked Sandy, amazed. Ricks nodded. "And have I blowed all that to-day?" "What of it?" asked Ricks. "I seen a bloke onct what lit his cigar with a bill like the one you had!" "But the doctor said it was two pounds," insisted Sandy, incredulously. He did not realize the expense of a personally conducted tour of the Bowery. "Well, it's went," said Ricks, resignedly. "You can't count on settin' up biz with what's left." Sandy's brows clouded, and he shifted his position restlessly. "Now I ax yerself, Ricks, what'u'd you do?" he said. "Me? I don't give advice to nobody. But effen it was me I'd know mighty quick what to do." "What?" said Sandy, eagerly. "Buy a dawg." "A dog? I ain't goin' blind." "Lor'! but you're a softhorn," said Ricks, contemptuously. "I s'pose you'd count on leadin' him round by a pink ribbon." "Oh, you mean a fighter?" "Sure. My last dawg could do ever'thing in sight. She was so game she went after herself in a lookin'-glass and got kilt. Oh, they's money in dawgs, and I knows how to make 'em win ever' time." Sandy, tired as he was from the day's excitement, insisted upon going in search of one at once. He already had visions of becoming the proud owner of a canine champion that would put him immediately into the position of lighting his cigar with a two-pound note. The first three weeks of their experience on the road went far to realize their expectations. The bulldog, which had been bought in partnership, proved a conquering hero. Through the long summer days the boys tramped over the country, peddling their wares, and by night they conducted sundry unlawful encounters wherever an opponent could be found. Sandy enjoyed the peddling. It was astonishing what friendly sociability and confidential intimacy were established by the sale of blue suspenders and pink soap. He left a line of smiling testimonials in his wake. But if the days were proving satisfactory, so much could not be said of the nights. Even the phenomenal luck that followed his dog failed to keep up his enthusiasm. "You ain't a nachrul sport," complained Ricks. "That's your trouble. When the last fight was on, you set on the fence and listened at a' ole idiot scrapin' a fiddle down in the valley." Sandy made a feeble defense, but he knew in his soul it was so. Affairs reached a climax one night in an old barn on the outskirts of a town. A fight was about to begin when Sandy discovered Ricks judiciously administering a sedative to the enemy's dog. Then understanding dawned upon him, and his rage was elemental. With a valor that lacked the better part of discretion, he hurled himself through the crowd and fell upon Ricks. An hour later, bruised, bloody, and vanquished, he stumbled along through the dreary night. Hot with rage and defeat, utterly ignorant of his whereabouts, his one friend turned foe, he was indeed in sorry plight. He climbed over the fence and lay face downward in the long, cool grass, stretching his bruised and aching body along the ground. A gentle night wind rustled above him, and by and by a star peeped out, then another and another. Before he knew it, he was listening to the frogs and katydids, and wondering what they were talking about. He ceased to think about Ricks and his woes, and gave himself up to the delicious, drowsy peace that was all about him. For, child of nature that he was, he had turned to the only mother he knew. CHAPTER IV SIDE-TRACKED The next morning, at the nearest railroad station, an irate cattleman was trying to hire some one to take charge of a car of live stock which was on its way to a great exposition in a neighboring city. The man he had counted on had not appeared, and the train was about due. As he was turning away in desperation he felt a tug at his elbow. Looking around, he saw a queer figure with a countenance that resembled a first attempt at a charcoal sketch from life: one cheek was larger than the other, the mouth was sadly out of drawing, the eyes shone out from among the bruises like the sun from behind the clouds. But if the features were disfigured, the smile was none the less courageous. Sandy had found a friendly sympathizer at a neighboring farm-house, had been given a good breakfast, had made his toilet, and was ready for the next round in the fight of life. "I'll be doin' yer job, sir, whatever it is," he said pleasantly. The man eyed him with misgiving, but his need was urgent. "All you have to do is to stay in the car and look after the cattle. My man will meet you when you reach the city. Do you think you can do it?" "Just keep company with the cows?" cried Sandy. "Sure and I can!" So the bargain was struck, and that night found him in the great city with a dollar in his pocket and a promise of work in the morning. Tired and sore from the experiences of the night before, he sought a cheap lodging-house near by. A hook-nosed woman, carrying a smoking lamp, conducted him to a room under the eaves. It was small and suffocating. He involuntarily lifted his hands and touched the ceiling. "It's like a boilin' potato I feel," he said; "and the pot's so little and the lid so tight!" He went to the window, and taking out the nail that held down the sash, pushed it up. Below him lay the great, bustling city, cabs and cars in constant motion, long lines of blazing lights marking the thoroughfares, the thunder of trains in the big station, and above and below and through it all a dull monotonous roar, like the faraway unceasing cry of a hungry beast. He sank on his knees by the window, and a restless, nervous look came into his eyes. "It presses in, too," he thought. "It's all crowdin' over me. I'm just me by myself, all alone." A tear made a white course down his grimy cheek, then another and another. He brushed them impatiently away with the cap he still held in his hand. Rising abruptly, he turned away from the window, and the hot air of the room again smote him. The smoking lamp had blackened the chimney, and as he bent to turn it down, he caught his reflection in a small mirror over the table. What the bruises and swelling had left undone the cheap mirror completed. He started back. Was that the boy he knew as himself? Was that Sandy Kilday who had come to America to seek his fortune? He stared in a sort of fascinated horror at that other boy in the mirror. Before he had been afraid to be by himself, now he was afraid of himself. He seized his cap, and blowing out the lamp, plunged down four flights of steep narrow steps and out into the street. A number of people were crowding into a street-car marked "Exposition." Sandy, ever a straw in the current, joined them. Once more down among his fellow-men, he began to feel more comfortable. He cheerfully paid his entrance fee with one of the two silver coins in his pocket. The first building he entered was the art gallery, and the first picture that caught his eye held him spellbound. He sat before it all the evening with fascinated eyes, devouring every detail and oblivious to the curious interest he was attracting; for the huge canvas represented the Knights of the Round Table, and he had at last found friends. All the way back he thought about the picture; it was not until he reached his room that the former loneliness returned. But even then it was not for long. A pair of yellow eyes peered around the window-sill, and a plaintive "meow" begged for admittance. It was plainly Providence that guided that thin and ill-treated kitten to Sandy's window. The welcome it received must have completely restored its shaken faith in human nature. Tired as he was, Sandy went out and bought some milk. He wanted to establish a firm friendship; for if he was to stay in this lonely city, he must have something to love, if only a prodigal kitten of doubtful pedigree. During the long, hot days that followed Sandy worked faithfully at the depot. The regular hours and confinement seemed doubly irksome after the bohemian life on the road. The Exposition was his salvation. No sacrifice seemed too great to enable him to get beyond that magic gate. For the "Knights of the Round Table" was but the beginning of miles and miles of wonderful pictures. He even bought a catalogue, and, prompted by a natural curiosity for anything that interested him, learned the names of the artists he liked best, and the bits of biography attached to each. He would recite these to the yellow kitten when he got back to his little hot-box of a room. One night the art gallery was closed, and he went into another big building where a crowd of people were seated. At one end of it was a great pipe-organ, and after a while some one began to play. With his cap tightly grasped in both hands, he tiptoed down the center aisle and stood breathlessly drinking in the wonderful tones that seemed to be coming from his own heart. "Get out of the way, boy," said an usher. "You are blocking the aisle." A queer-appearing lady who looked like a man touched his elbow. "Here's a seat," she said in a deep voice. "Thank you, sir," said Sandy, absently. He scarcely knew whether he was sitting or standing. He only wanted to be let alone, so that he could listen to those strange, beautiful sounds that made a shiver of joy go down his back. Art had had her day; it was Music's turn. When the last number had been played, he turned to the queer lady: "Do they do it every night?" She smiled at his enthusiasm: "Wednesdays and Saturdays." "Say," said Sandy, confidentially, "if you come first do you save me a seat, and I'll do the same by you." From that time on he decided to be a musician, and he lived on two scanty meals a day in order to attend the concerts. But this exalted scheme of high thinking and plain living soon became irksome. One day, when his loneliness weighed most heavily upon him, he was sent with a message out to the switch-station. As he tramped back along the track he spied a familiar figure ahead of him. There was no mistaking that short, slouching body with the peddler's pack strapped on its back. With a cry of joy, Sandy bounded after Ricks Wilson. He actually hugged him in his joy to be once more with some one he knew. Ricks glanced uneasily at the scar above his eye. Sandy clapped his hand over it and laughed. "It's all right, Ricks; a miss is as good as a mile. I ain't mad any more. It's straight home with me you are goin'; and if we can get the two feet of you into me bit of a room, we'll have a dinner that's fit for a king." On the way they laid in a supply of provisions, Sandy even going to the expense of a bottle of beer for Ricks. The yellow kitten arched her back and showed general signs of hostility when the stranger was introduced. But her unfriendly demonstrations were ignored. Ricks was the honored guest, and Sandy extended to him the full hospitality of the establishment. "Put your pack on the floor and yerself in the chair, and I'll get ye filled up in the blink of an eyelash. Don't be mindin' the cat, Ricks. She's just lettin' on she don't take to you. She give me the wink on the sly." Ricks, expanding under the influence of food and drink, became eloquent. He recounted courageous adventures of the past, and outlined marvelous schemes for the future, by which he was going to make a short cut to fame and glory. When it was time for him to go, Sandy heaved a sigh of regret. For two hours he had been beguiled by Ricks's romances, and now he had to go back to the humdrum duties at the depot, and receive a sound rating for his belated appearance. "Which way might you be goin', Ricks?" he asked wistfully. "Same place I started fer," said Ricks. "Kentucky." The will-o'-the-wisp, which had been hiding his light, suddenly swung it full in the eyes of Sandy. Once more he saw the little maid of his dreams, and once more he threw discretion to the winds and followed the vision. Hastily collecting his few possessions, he rolled them into a bundle, and slipping the surprised kitten into his pocket, he gladly followed Ricks once more out into the broad green meadows, along the white and shining roads that lead over the hills to Kentucky. CHAPTER V SANDY RETIRES FROM BUSINESS "This here is too blame slow fer me," said Ricks, one chilly night in late September, as he and Sandy huddled against a haystack and settled up their weekly accounts. "Fifty-five cents! Now ain't that a' o'nery dab? Here's a quarter fer you and thirty cents fer me; that's as even as you kin split it." "It's the microscopes that'll be sellin'," said Sandy, hopefully, as he pulled his coat collar about his ears and shivered. "The man as sold 'em to me said they was a great bargain entirely. He thought there was money in 'em." "For him," said Ricks, contemptuously. "It's like the man what gulled us on the penknives. I lay to git even with him, all right." "But he give us the night's lodgin' and some breakfast," said Sandy. Ricks took a long drink from a short bottle, then holding it before him, he said impressively: "A feller could do me ninety-nine good turns, and if he done me one bad one it would wipe 'em all out. I got to git even with anybody what does me dirty, if it takes me all my life." "But don't you forget to remember?" "Not me. I ain't that kind." Sandy leaned wearily against the haystack and tried to shelter himself from the wind. A continued diet of bread and water had made him sensitive to the changes in the weather. "This here grub is kinder hard on yer head-rails," said Ricks, trying to bite through a piece of stale bread. A baker had let them have three loaves for a dime because they were old and hard. Sandy cast a longing look at Ricks's short bottle. It seemed to remedy so many ills, heat or cold, thirst or hunger. But the strict principles applied during his tender years made him hesitate. "I wish we hadn't lost the kitten," he said, feeling the need of a more cheerful companion. "I'm a-goin' to git another dawg," announced Ricks. "I'm sick of this here doin's." "Ain't we goin' to be turfmen?" asked Sandy, who had listened by the hour to thrilling accounts of life on the track, and had accepted Ricks's ambition as his own. "Not on twenty cents per week," growled Ricks. Sandy's heart sank; he knew what a new dog meant. He burrowed in the hay and tried to sleep, but there was a queer pain that seemed to catch hold of his breath whenever he breathed down deep. It rained the next day, and they tramped disconsolately through village after village. They had oil-cloth covers for their baskets, but their own backs were soaked to the skin. Toward evening they came to the top of a hill, from which they could look directly down upon a large town lying comfortably in the crook of a river's elbow. The rain had stopped, and the belated sun, struggling through the clouds, made up for lost time by reflecting itself in every curve of the winding stream, in every puddle along the road, and in every pane of glass that faced the west. "That's a nobby hoss," said Ricks, pointing down the hill. "What's the matter with the feller?" A slight, delicate-looking young man was lying in the road, between the horse and the fence. As the boys came up he stirred and tried to rise. "He's off his nut," said Ricks, starting to pass on; but Sandy stopped. "Get a fall?" he asked. The strange boy shook his head. "I guess I fainted. I must have ridden too hard. I'll be all right in a minute." He leaned his head against a tree and closed his eyes. Sandy eyed him curiously, taking in all the details of his riding-costume down to the short whip with the silver mounting. "I say, Ricks," he called to his companion, who was inspecting the horse, "can't we do somethin' for him?" Ricks reluctantly produced the short bottle. "I'm all right," insisted the boy, "if you'll just give me a lift to the saddle." But his eager eyes followed the bottle, and before Ricks had returned it to his pocket he held out his hand. "I believe I will take a drink if you don't mind." He drained the contents and then handed a coin to Ricks. "Now, if you'll help me," continued the stranger. "There! Thank you very much." "Say, what town is this, anyway?" asked Ricks. "Clayton," said the boy, trying to keep his horse from backing. "Looks like somethin' was doin'," said Ricks. "Circus, I believe." "Then I don't blame your nag for wantin' to go back!" cried Sandy. "Come on, Ricks; let's take in the show!" Half-way down the hill he turned. "Haven't we seen that fellow before, Ricks?" "Not as I knows of. He looked kinder pale and shaky, but you bet yer life he knowed how to hit the bottle." "He was sick," urged Sandy. "An' thirsty," added Ricks, with a smile of superior wisdom. The circus seemed such a timely opportunity to do business that they decided to rent a stand that night and sell their wares on the street corner. Ricks went on into town to arrange matters, while Sandy stopped in a grocery to buy their supper. His interest in the show had been of short duration. He felt listless and tired, something seemed to be buzzing continually in his head, and he shivered in his damp clothes. In the grocery he sat on a barrel and leaned his head against the wall. "What you shivering about?" asked the fat woman behind the counter, as she tied up his small package. "I feel like me skeleton was doin' a jig inside of me," said Sandy through chattering teeth. "Looks to me like you got a chill," said the fat woman. "You wait here, and I'll go git you some hot coffee." She disappeared in the rear of the store, and soon returned with a small coffee-pot and a cup and saucer. Sandy drank two cups and a half, then he asked the price. "Price?" repeated the woman, indignantly. "I reckon you don't know which side of the Ohio River you're on!" Sandy made up in gratitude what she declined in cash, and started on his way. At the corner of Main street and the bridge he found Ricks, who had rented a stand and was already arranging his wares. Sandy knelt on the sidewalk and unpacked his basket. "Only three bars of soap and seventy-five microscopes!" he exclaimed ruefully. "Let's be layin' fine stress on the microscopes, Ricks." "You do the jawin', Sandy. I ain't much on givin' 'em the talk," said Ricks. "Chuck a jolly at 'em and keep 'em hangin' round." As dark came on, trade began. The three bars of soap were sold, and a purple necktie. Sandy saw that public taste must be guided in the proper direction. He stepped up on a box and began eloquently to enumerate the diverse uses of microscopes. At each end of the stand a flaring torch lighted up the scene. The light fell on the careless, laughing faces in front, on Ricks Wilson, black-browed and suspicious, in the rear, and it fell full on Sandy, who stood on high and harangued the crowd. It fell on his broad, straight shoulders and on his shining tumbled hair; but it was not the light of the torch that gave the brightness to his eyes and the flush to his cheek. His head was throbbing, but he felt a curious sense of elation. He felt that he could stand there and talk the rest of his life. He made the crowd listen, he made it laugh, he made it buy. He told stories and sang songs, he coaxed and persuaded, until only a few microscopes were left and the old cigar-box was heavy with silver. "Step right up and take a look at a fly's leg! Every one ought to have a microscope in his home. When you get hard up it will make a dime look like a dollar, and a dollar like a five-dollar gold piece. Step right up! I ain't kiddin' you. Five cents for two looks, and fifteen for the microscope." Suddenly he faltered. At the edge of the crowd he had recognized two faces. They were sensitive slender faces, strangely alike in feature and unlike in expression. The young horseman of the afternoon was impatiently pushing his way through the crowd, while close behind him was a dainty girl with brown eyes slightly lifted at the outer corners, who held back in laughing wonder to watch the scene. "Ricks," said Sandy, lowering his voice unsteadily, "is this Kentucky?" "Yep; we crossed the line to-day." "I can't talk no more," said Sandy. "You'll have to be doin' it. I'm sick." It was not only the fever that was burning in his veins, and making him bury his hot head in his hands and wish he had never been born. It was shame and humiliation, and all because of the look on the face of the girl at the edge of the crowd. He sat in the shadow of the big box and fought his fight. The coffee and the excitement no longer kept him up; he was faint, and his breath came short. Above him he heard Ricks's rasping voice still talking to the few customers who were left. He knew, without glancing up, just how Ricks looked when he said the words; he knew how his teeth pushed his lips back, and how his restless little eyes watched everything at once. A sudden fierce repulsion swept over him for peddling, for Ricks, for himself. "And to think," he whispered, with a sob in his throat, "that I can't ever speak to a girl like that!" Ricks, jubilant over the success of the evening, decided to follow the circus, which was to be in the next town on the following day. "It ain't fur," he said. "We kin push on to-night and be ready to open early in the morning." Sandy, miserable in body and spirit, mechanically obeyed instructions. His head was getting queerer all the time, and he could not remember whether it was day or night. About a mile from Clayton he sank down by the road. "Say, Ricks," he said abruptly; "I'm after quittin' peddlin'." "What you goin' to do?" "I'm goin' to school." If Sandy had announced his intention of putting on baby clothes and being wheeled in a perambulator, Ricks could not have been more astonished. "What?" he asked in genuine doubt. "'Cause I want to be the right sort," burst out Sandy, passionately. "This ain't the way you get to be the right sort." Ricks surveyed him contemptuously. "Look-a here, are you comin' along of me or not?" "I can't," said Sandy, weakly. Ricks shifted his pack, and with never a parting word or a backward look he left his business partner of three months lying by the roadside, and tramped away in the darkness. Sandy started up to follow him; he tried to call, but he had no strength. He lay with his face on the road and talked. He knew there was nobody to listen, but still he kept on, softly talking about microscopes and pink soap, crying out again and again that he couldn't ever speak to a girl like that. After a long while somebody came. At first he thought he must have gone back to the land behind the peat-flames, for it was a great black witch who bent over him, and he instinctively felt about in the grass for the tender, soft hand which he used to press against his cheek. He found instead the hand of the witch herself, and he drew back in terror. "Fer de Lawd sake, honey, what's de matter wif you?" asked a kindly voice. Sandy opened his eyes. A tall old negro woman bent over him, her head tied up in a turban, and a shawl about her shoulders. "Did you git runned over?" she asked, peering down at him anxiously. Sandy tried to explain, but it was all the old mixture of soap and microscopes and never being able to speak to her. He knew he was talking at random, but he could not say the things he thought. "Where'd you come from, boy?" "Curragh Chase, Limerick," murmured Sandy. "'Fore de Lawd, he's done been cunjered!" cried the old woman, aghast. "I'll git it outen of you, chile. You jus' come home wif yer Aunt Melvy; she'll take keer of you. Put yer arm on my shoulder; dat's right. Don't you mind where you gwine at. I got yer bundle. It ain't fur. Hit's dat little house a-hangin' on de side of de hill. Dey calls it 'Who'd 'a' Thought It,' 'ca'se you nebber would 'a' thought of puttin' a house dere. Dat's right; lean on yer mammy. I'll git dem old cunjers outen you." Thus encouraged and supported, Sandy stumbled on through the dark, up a hillside that seemed never to end, across a bridge, then into a tiny log cabin, where he dropped exhausted. Off and on during the night he knew that there was a fire in the room, and that strange things were happening to him. But it was all so queer and unnatural that he did not know where the dreams left off and the real began. He was vaguely conscious of his left foot being tied to the right bedpost, of a lock of his hair being cut off and burned on the hearth, and of a low monotonous chant that seemed to rise and fall with the flicker of the flames. And when he cried out with the pain in his sleep, a kindly black face bent over him, and the chant changed into a soothing murmur: "Nebber you min', sonny; Aunt Melvy gwine git dem cunjers out. She gwine stay by you. You hol' on to her han', an' go to sleep; she'll git dem old cunjers out." CHAPTER VI HOLLIS FARM Clayton was an easy-going, prosperous old town which, in the enthusiasm of youth, had started to climb the long hill to the north, but growing indolent with age, | slouching | How many times the word 'slouching' appears in the text? | 2 |
ventured a step nearer and continued his observations. As he did so, he made a discovery. The soft white of her cheek was gradually becoming pinker and pinker; the color which began under her lace collar stole up and up until it reached her eyes, which still gazed determinedly before her. Sandy admired it as a traveler admires a sunrise, and with as little idea of having caused it. The line of passengers moved slowly forward, and his heart sank. Suddenly his eyes fell upon the little hand-bag which she carried. On one end, in small white letters, was: "Ruth Nelson, Kentucky, U.S.A." He watched her until she was lost to view, then he turned eagerly back into the crowd. Elbowing his way forward, he seized Ricks by the arm. "Hi, there!" he cried; "I've changed me mind. I'm goin' with you to Kentucky!" So this impetuous knight errant enlisted under the will-o'-the-wisp love, and started joyously forth upon his quest. CHAPTER III THE CURSE OF WEALTH It is an oft-proved adage that for ten who can stand adversity there is but one who can stand prosperity. Sandy, alas! was no exception to any rule which went to prove the frailty of human nature. The sudden acquisition of ten dollars cast him into a whirlpool of temptation from which he made little effort to escape. "I ain't goin' on to-day," announced Ricks. "I'm goin' to lay in my goods for peddlin'. I reckon you kin come along of me." Sandy accepted a long and strong cigar, tilted his hat, and unconsciously caught Ricks's slouching gait as they went down the street. After all, it was rather pleasant to associate with sophistication. "We'll git on the outside of a little dinner," said Ricks; "and I'll mosey round in the stores awhile, then I'll take you to a show or two. It's a mighty good thing for you that you got me along." Sandy thought so too. He cheerfully stood treat for the rest of the day, and felt that it was small return for Ricks's condescension. "How much you got left?" asked Ricks, that night, as they stopped under a street light to take stock. Sandy held out a couple of dollars and a fifty-cent piece. "Enough to put on the eyes of two and a half dead men," he said as he curiously eyed the strange money. "One, two,--two and a half," counted Ricks. "Shillings?" asked Sandy, amazed. Ricks nodded. "And have I blowed all that to-day?" "What of it?" asked Ricks. "I seen a bloke onct what lit his cigar with a bill like the one you had!" "But the doctor said it was two pounds," insisted Sandy, incredulously. He did not realize the expense of a personally conducted tour of the Bowery. "Well, it's went," said Ricks, resignedly. "You can't count on settin' up biz with what's left." Sandy's brows clouded, and he shifted his position restlessly. "Now I ax yerself, Ricks, what'u'd you do?" he said. "Me? I don't give advice to nobody. But effen it was me I'd know mighty quick what to do." "What?" said Sandy, eagerly. "Buy a dawg." "A dog? I ain't goin' blind." "Lor'! but you're a softhorn," said Ricks, contemptuously. "I s'pose you'd count on leadin' him round by a pink ribbon." "Oh, you mean a fighter?" "Sure. My last dawg could do ever'thing in sight. She was so game she went after herself in a lookin'-glass and got kilt. Oh, they's money in dawgs, and I knows how to make 'em win ever' time." Sandy, tired as he was from the day's excitement, insisted upon going in search of one at once. He already had visions of becoming the proud owner of a canine champion that would put him immediately into the position of lighting his cigar with a two-pound note. The first three weeks of their experience on the road went far to realize their expectations. The bulldog, which had been bought in partnership, proved a conquering hero. Through the long summer days the boys tramped over the country, peddling their wares, and by night they conducted sundry unlawful encounters wherever an opponent could be found. Sandy enjoyed the peddling. It was astonishing what friendly sociability and confidential intimacy were established by the sale of blue suspenders and pink soap. He left a line of smiling testimonials in his wake. But if the days were proving satisfactory, so much could not be said of the nights. Even the phenomenal luck that followed his dog failed to keep up his enthusiasm. "You ain't a nachrul sport," complained Ricks. "That's your trouble. When the last fight was on, you set on the fence and listened at a' ole idiot scrapin' a fiddle down in the valley." Sandy made a feeble defense, but he knew in his soul it was so. Affairs reached a climax one night in an old barn on the outskirts of a town. A fight was about to begin when Sandy discovered Ricks judiciously administering a sedative to the enemy's dog. Then understanding dawned upon him, and his rage was elemental. With a valor that lacked the better part of discretion, he hurled himself through the crowd and fell upon Ricks. An hour later, bruised, bloody, and vanquished, he stumbled along through the dreary night. Hot with rage and defeat, utterly ignorant of his whereabouts, his one friend turned foe, he was indeed in sorry plight. He climbed over the fence and lay face downward in the long, cool grass, stretching his bruised and aching body along the ground. A gentle night wind rustled above him, and by and by a star peeped out, then another and another. Before he knew it, he was listening to the frogs and katydids, and wondering what they were talking about. He ceased to think about Ricks and his woes, and gave himself up to the delicious, drowsy peace that was all about him. For, child of nature that he was, he had turned to the only mother he knew. CHAPTER IV SIDE-TRACKED The next morning, at the nearest railroad station, an irate cattleman was trying to hire some one to take charge of a car of live stock which was on its way to a great exposition in a neighboring city. The man he had counted on had not appeared, and the train was about due. As he was turning away in desperation he felt a tug at his elbow. Looking around, he saw a queer figure with a countenance that resembled a first attempt at a charcoal sketch from life: one cheek was larger than the other, the mouth was sadly out of drawing, the eyes shone out from among the bruises like the sun from behind the clouds. But if the features were disfigured, the smile was none the less courageous. Sandy had found a friendly sympathizer at a neighboring farm-house, had been given a good breakfast, had made his toilet, and was ready for the next round in the fight of life. "I'll be doin' yer job, sir, whatever it is," he said pleasantly. The man eyed him with misgiving, but his need was urgent. "All you have to do is to stay in the car and look after the cattle. My man will meet you when you reach the city. Do you think you can do it?" "Just keep company with the cows?" cried Sandy. "Sure and I can!" So the bargain was struck, and that night found him in the great city with a dollar in his pocket and a promise of work in the morning. Tired and sore from the experiences of the night before, he sought a cheap lodging-house near by. A hook-nosed woman, carrying a smoking lamp, conducted him to a room under the eaves. It was small and suffocating. He involuntarily lifted his hands and touched the ceiling. "It's like a boilin' potato I feel," he said; "and the pot's so little and the lid so tight!" He went to the window, and taking out the nail that held down the sash, pushed it up. Below him lay the great, bustling city, cabs and cars in constant motion, long lines of blazing lights marking the thoroughfares, the thunder of trains in the big station, and above and below and through it all a dull monotonous roar, like the faraway unceasing cry of a hungry beast. He sank on his knees by the window, and a restless, nervous look came into his eyes. "It presses in, too," he thought. "It's all crowdin' over me. I'm just me by myself, all alone." A tear made a white course down his grimy cheek, then another and another. He brushed them impatiently away with the cap he still held in his hand. Rising abruptly, he turned away from the window, and the hot air of the room again smote him. The smoking lamp had blackened the chimney, and as he bent to turn it down, he caught his reflection in a small mirror over the table. What the bruises and swelling had left undone the cheap mirror completed. He started back. Was that the boy he knew as himself? Was that Sandy Kilday who had come to America to seek his fortune? He stared in a sort of fascinated horror at that other boy in the mirror. Before he had been afraid to be by himself, now he was afraid of himself. He seized his cap, and blowing out the lamp, plunged down four flights of steep narrow steps and out into the street. A number of people were crowding into a street-car marked "Exposition." Sandy, ever a straw in the current, joined them. Once more down among his fellow-men, he began to feel more comfortable. He cheerfully paid his entrance fee with one of the two silver coins in his pocket. The first building he entered was the art gallery, and the first picture that caught his eye held him spellbound. He sat before it all the evening with fascinated eyes, devouring every detail and oblivious to the curious interest he was attracting; for the huge canvas represented the Knights of the Round Table, and he had at last found friends. All the way back he thought about the picture; it was not until he reached his room that the former loneliness returned. But even then it was not for long. A pair of yellow eyes peered around the window-sill, and a plaintive "meow" begged for admittance. It was plainly Providence that guided that thin and ill-treated kitten to Sandy's window. The welcome it received must have completely restored its shaken faith in human nature. Tired as he was, Sandy went out and bought some milk. He wanted to establish a firm friendship; for if he was to stay in this lonely city, he must have something to love, if only a prodigal kitten of doubtful pedigree. During the long, hot days that followed Sandy worked faithfully at the depot. The regular hours and confinement seemed doubly irksome after the bohemian life on the road. The Exposition was his salvation. No sacrifice seemed too great to enable him to get beyond that magic gate. For the "Knights of the Round Table" was but the beginning of miles and miles of wonderful pictures. He even bought a catalogue, and, prompted by a natural curiosity for anything that interested him, learned the names of the artists he liked best, and the bits of biography attached to each. He would recite these to the yellow kitten when he got back to his little hot-box of a room. One night the art gallery was closed, and he went into another big building where a crowd of people were seated. At one end of it was a great pipe-organ, and after a while some one began to play. With his cap tightly grasped in both hands, he tiptoed down the center aisle and stood breathlessly drinking in the wonderful tones that seemed to be coming from his own heart. "Get out of the way, boy," said an usher. "You are blocking the aisle." A queer-appearing lady who looked like a man touched his elbow. "Here's a seat," she said in a deep voice. "Thank you, sir," said Sandy, absently. He scarcely knew whether he was sitting or standing. He only wanted to be let alone, so that he could listen to those strange, beautiful sounds that made a shiver of joy go down his back. Art had had her day; it was Music's turn. When the last number had been played, he turned to the queer lady: "Do they do it every night?" She smiled at his enthusiasm: "Wednesdays and Saturdays." "Say," said Sandy, confidentially, "if you come first do you save me a seat, and I'll do the same by you." From that time on he decided to be a musician, and he lived on two scanty meals a day in order to attend the concerts. But this exalted scheme of high thinking and plain living soon became irksome. One day, when his loneliness weighed most heavily upon him, he was sent with a message out to the switch-station. As he tramped back along the track he spied a familiar figure ahead of him. There was no mistaking that short, slouching body with the peddler's pack strapped on its back. With a cry of joy, Sandy bounded after Ricks Wilson. He actually hugged him in his joy to be once more with some one he knew. Ricks glanced uneasily at the scar above his eye. Sandy clapped his hand over it and laughed. "It's all right, Ricks; a miss is as good as a mile. I ain't mad any more. It's straight home with me you are goin'; and if we can get the two feet of you into me bit of a room, we'll have a dinner that's fit for a king." On the way they laid in a supply of provisions, Sandy even going to the expense of a bottle of beer for Ricks. The yellow kitten arched her back and showed general signs of hostility when the stranger was introduced. But her unfriendly demonstrations were ignored. Ricks was the honored guest, and Sandy extended to him the full hospitality of the establishment. "Put your pack on the floor and yerself in the chair, and I'll get ye filled up in the blink of an eyelash. Don't be mindin' the cat, Ricks. She's just lettin' on she don't take to you. She give me the wink on the sly." Ricks, expanding under the influence of food and drink, became eloquent. He recounted courageous adventures of the past, and outlined marvelous schemes for the future, by which he was going to make a short cut to fame and glory. When it was time for him to go, Sandy heaved a sigh of regret. For two hours he had been beguiled by Ricks's romances, and now he had to go back to the humdrum duties at the depot, and receive a sound rating for his belated appearance. "Which way might you be goin', Ricks?" he asked wistfully. "Same place I started fer," said Ricks. "Kentucky." The will-o'-the-wisp, which had been hiding his light, suddenly swung it full in the eyes of Sandy. Once more he saw the little maid of his dreams, and once more he threw discretion to the winds and followed the vision. Hastily collecting his few possessions, he rolled them into a bundle, and slipping the surprised kitten into his pocket, he gladly followed Ricks once more out into the broad green meadows, along the white and shining roads that lead over the hills to Kentucky. CHAPTER V SANDY RETIRES FROM BUSINESS "This here is too blame slow fer me," said Ricks, one chilly night in late September, as he and Sandy huddled against a haystack and settled up their weekly accounts. "Fifty-five cents! Now ain't that a' o'nery dab? Here's a quarter fer you and thirty cents fer me; that's as even as you kin split it." "It's the microscopes that'll be sellin'," said Sandy, hopefully, as he pulled his coat collar about his ears and shivered. "The man as sold 'em to me said they was a great bargain entirely. He thought there was money in 'em." "For him," said Ricks, contemptuously. "It's like the man what gulled us on the penknives. I lay to git even with him, all right." "But he give us the night's lodgin' and some breakfast," said Sandy. Ricks took a long drink from a short bottle, then holding it before him, he said impressively: "A feller could do me ninety-nine good turns, and if he done me one bad one it would wipe 'em all out. I got to git even with anybody what does me dirty, if it takes me all my life." "But don't you forget to remember?" "Not me. I ain't that kind." Sandy leaned wearily against the haystack and tried to shelter himself from the wind. A continued diet of bread and water had made him sensitive to the changes in the weather. "This here grub is kinder hard on yer head-rails," said Ricks, trying to bite through a piece of stale bread. A baker had let them have three loaves for a dime because they were old and hard. Sandy cast a longing look at Ricks's short bottle. It seemed to remedy so many ills, heat or cold, thirst or hunger. But the strict principles applied during his tender years made him hesitate. "I wish we hadn't lost the kitten," he said, feeling the need of a more cheerful companion. "I'm a-goin' to git another dawg," announced Ricks. "I'm sick of this here doin's." "Ain't we goin' to be turfmen?" asked Sandy, who had listened by the hour to thrilling accounts of life on the track, and had accepted Ricks's ambition as his own. "Not on twenty cents per week," growled Ricks. Sandy's heart sank; he knew what a new dog meant. He burrowed in the hay and tried to sleep, but there was a queer pain that seemed to catch hold of his breath whenever he breathed down deep. It rained the next day, and they tramped disconsolately through village after village. They had oil-cloth covers for their baskets, but their own backs were soaked to the skin. Toward evening they came to the top of a hill, from which they could look directly down upon a large town lying comfortably in the crook of a river's elbow. The rain had stopped, and the belated sun, struggling through the clouds, made up for lost time by reflecting itself in every curve of the winding stream, in every puddle along the road, and in every pane of glass that faced the west. "That's a nobby hoss," said Ricks, pointing down the hill. "What's the matter with the feller?" A slight, delicate-looking young man was lying in the road, between the horse and the fence. As the boys came up he stirred and tried to rise. "He's off his nut," said Ricks, starting to pass on; but Sandy stopped. "Get a fall?" he asked. The strange boy shook his head. "I guess I fainted. I must have ridden too hard. I'll be all right in a minute." He leaned his head against a tree and closed his eyes. Sandy eyed him curiously, taking in all the details of his riding-costume down to the short whip with the silver mounting. "I say, Ricks," he called to his companion, who was inspecting the horse, "can't we do somethin' for him?" Ricks reluctantly produced the short bottle. "I'm all right," insisted the boy, "if you'll just give me a lift to the saddle." But his eager eyes followed the bottle, and before Ricks had returned it to his pocket he held out his hand. "I believe I will take a drink if you don't mind." He drained the contents and then handed a coin to Ricks. "Now, if you'll help me," continued the stranger. "There! Thank you very much." "Say, what town is this, anyway?" asked Ricks. "Clayton," said the boy, trying to keep his horse from backing. "Looks like somethin' was doin'," said Ricks. "Circus, I believe." "Then I don't blame your nag for wantin' to go back!" cried Sandy. "Come on, Ricks; let's take in the show!" Half-way down the hill he turned. "Haven't we seen that fellow before, Ricks?" "Not as I knows of. He looked kinder pale and shaky, but you bet yer life he knowed how to hit the bottle." "He was sick," urged Sandy. "An' thirsty," added Ricks, with a smile of superior wisdom. The circus seemed such a timely opportunity to do business that they decided to rent a stand that night and sell their wares on the street corner. Ricks went on into town to arrange matters, while Sandy stopped in a grocery to buy their supper. His interest in the show had been of short duration. He felt listless and tired, something seemed to be buzzing continually in his head, and he shivered in his damp clothes. In the grocery he sat on a barrel and leaned his head against the wall. "What you shivering about?" asked the fat woman behind the counter, as she tied up his small package. "I feel like me skeleton was doin' a jig inside of me," said Sandy through chattering teeth. "Looks to me like you got a chill," said the fat woman. "You wait here, and I'll go git you some hot coffee." She disappeared in the rear of the store, and soon returned with a small coffee-pot and a cup and saucer. Sandy drank two cups and a half, then he asked the price. "Price?" repeated the woman, indignantly. "I reckon you don't know which side of the Ohio River you're on!" Sandy made up in gratitude what she declined in cash, and started on his way. At the corner of Main street and the bridge he found Ricks, who had rented a stand and was already arranging his wares. Sandy knelt on the sidewalk and unpacked his basket. "Only three bars of soap and seventy-five microscopes!" he exclaimed ruefully. "Let's be layin' fine stress on the microscopes, Ricks." "You do the jawin', Sandy. I ain't much on givin' 'em the talk," said Ricks. "Chuck a jolly at 'em and keep 'em hangin' round." As dark came on, trade began. The three bars of soap were sold, and a purple necktie. Sandy saw that public taste must be guided in the proper direction. He stepped up on a box and began eloquently to enumerate the diverse uses of microscopes. At each end of the stand a flaring torch lighted up the scene. The light fell on the careless, laughing faces in front, on Ricks Wilson, black-browed and suspicious, in the rear, and it fell full on Sandy, who stood on high and harangued the crowd. It fell on his broad, straight shoulders and on his shining tumbled hair; but it was not the light of the torch that gave the brightness to his eyes and the flush to his cheek. His head was throbbing, but he felt a curious sense of elation. He felt that he could stand there and talk the rest of his life. He made the crowd listen, he made it laugh, he made it buy. He told stories and sang songs, he coaxed and persuaded, until only a few microscopes were left and the old cigar-box was heavy with silver. "Step right up and take a look at a fly's leg! Every one ought to have a microscope in his home. When you get hard up it will make a dime look like a dollar, and a dollar like a five-dollar gold piece. Step right up! I ain't kiddin' you. Five cents for two looks, and fifteen for the microscope." Suddenly he faltered. At the edge of the crowd he had recognized two faces. They were sensitive slender faces, strangely alike in feature and unlike in expression. The young horseman of the afternoon was impatiently pushing his way through the crowd, while close behind him was a dainty girl with brown eyes slightly lifted at the outer corners, who held back in laughing wonder to watch the scene. "Ricks," said Sandy, lowering his voice unsteadily, "is this Kentucky?" "Yep; we crossed the line to-day." "I can't talk no more," said Sandy. "You'll have to be doin' it. I'm sick." It was not only the fever that was burning in his veins, and making him bury his hot head in his hands and wish he had never been born. It was shame and humiliation, and all because of the look on the face of the girl at the edge of the crowd. He sat in the shadow of the big box and fought his fight. The coffee and the excitement no longer kept him up; he was faint, and his breath came short. Above him he heard Ricks's rasping voice still talking to the few customers who were left. He knew, without glancing up, just how Ricks looked when he said the words; he knew how his teeth pushed his lips back, and how his restless little eyes watched everything at once. A sudden fierce repulsion swept over him for peddling, for Ricks, for himself. "And to think," he whispered, with a sob in his throat, "that I can't ever speak to a girl like that!" Ricks, jubilant over the success of the evening, decided to follow the circus, which was to be in the next town on the following day. "It ain't fur," he said. "We kin push on to-night and be ready to open early in the morning." Sandy, miserable in body and spirit, mechanically obeyed instructions. His head was getting queerer all the time, and he could not remember whether it was day or night. About a mile from Clayton he sank down by the road. "Say, Ricks," he said abruptly; "I'm after quittin' peddlin'." "What you goin' to do?" "I'm goin' to school." If Sandy had announced his intention of putting on baby clothes and being wheeled in a perambulator, Ricks could not have been more astonished. "What?" he asked in genuine doubt. "'Cause I want to be the right sort," burst out Sandy, passionately. "This ain't the way you get to be the right sort." Ricks surveyed him contemptuously. "Look-a here, are you comin' along of me or not?" "I can't," said Sandy, weakly. Ricks shifted his pack, and with never a parting word or a backward look he left his business partner of three months lying by the roadside, and tramped away in the darkness. Sandy started up to follow him; he tried to call, but he had no strength. He lay with his face on the road and talked. He knew there was nobody to listen, but still he kept on, softly talking about microscopes and pink soap, crying out again and again that he couldn't ever speak to a girl like that. After a long while somebody came. At first he thought he must have gone back to the land behind the peat-flames, for it was a great black witch who bent over him, and he instinctively felt about in the grass for the tender, soft hand which he used to press against his cheek. He found instead the hand of the witch herself, and he drew back in terror. "Fer de Lawd sake, honey, what's de matter wif you?" asked a kindly voice. Sandy opened his eyes. A tall old negro woman bent over him, her head tied up in a turban, and a shawl about her shoulders. "Did you git runned over?" she asked, peering down at him anxiously. Sandy tried to explain, but it was all the old mixture of soap and microscopes and never being able to speak to her. He knew he was talking at random, but he could not say the things he thought. "Where'd you come from, boy?" "Curragh Chase, Limerick," murmured Sandy. "'Fore de Lawd, he's done been cunjered!" cried the old woman, aghast. "I'll git it outen of you, chile. You jus' come home wif yer Aunt Melvy; she'll take keer of you. Put yer arm on my shoulder; dat's right. Don't you mind where you gwine at. I got yer bundle. It ain't fur. Hit's dat little house a-hangin' on de side of de hill. Dey calls it 'Who'd 'a' Thought It,' 'ca'se you nebber would 'a' thought of puttin' a house dere. Dat's right; lean on yer mammy. I'll git dem old cunjers outen you." Thus encouraged and supported, Sandy stumbled on through the dark, up a hillside that seemed never to end, across a bridge, then into a tiny log cabin, where he dropped exhausted. Off and on during the night he knew that there was a fire in the room, and that strange things were happening to him. But it was all so queer and unnatural that he did not know where the dreams left off and the real began. He was vaguely conscious of his left foot being tied to the right bedpost, of a lock of his hair being cut off and burned on the hearth, and of a low monotonous chant that seemed to rise and fall with the flicker of the flames. And when he cried out with the pain in his sleep, a kindly black face bent over him, and the chant changed into a soothing murmur: "Nebber you min', sonny; Aunt Melvy gwine git dem cunjers out. She gwine stay by you. You hol' on to her han', an' go to sleep; she'll git dem old cunjers out." CHAPTER VI HOLLIS FARM Clayton was an easy-going, prosperous old town which, in the enthusiasm of youth, had started to climb the long hill to the north, but growing indolent with age, | composed | How many times the word 'composed' appears in the text? | 0 |
ventured a step nearer and continued his observations. As he did so, he made a discovery. The soft white of her cheek was gradually becoming pinker and pinker; the color which began under her lace collar stole up and up until it reached her eyes, which still gazed determinedly before her. Sandy admired it as a traveler admires a sunrise, and with as little idea of having caused it. The line of passengers moved slowly forward, and his heart sank. Suddenly his eyes fell upon the little hand-bag which she carried. On one end, in small white letters, was: "Ruth Nelson, Kentucky, U.S.A." He watched her until she was lost to view, then he turned eagerly back into the crowd. Elbowing his way forward, he seized Ricks by the arm. "Hi, there!" he cried; "I've changed me mind. I'm goin' with you to Kentucky!" So this impetuous knight errant enlisted under the will-o'-the-wisp love, and started joyously forth upon his quest. CHAPTER III THE CURSE OF WEALTH It is an oft-proved adage that for ten who can stand adversity there is but one who can stand prosperity. Sandy, alas! was no exception to any rule which went to prove the frailty of human nature. The sudden acquisition of ten dollars cast him into a whirlpool of temptation from which he made little effort to escape. "I ain't goin' on to-day," announced Ricks. "I'm goin' to lay in my goods for peddlin'. I reckon you kin come along of me." Sandy accepted a long and strong cigar, tilted his hat, and unconsciously caught Ricks's slouching gait as they went down the street. After all, it was rather pleasant to associate with sophistication. "We'll git on the outside of a little dinner," said Ricks; "and I'll mosey round in the stores awhile, then I'll take you to a show or two. It's a mighty good thing for you that you got me along." Sandy thought so too. He cheerfully stood treat for the rest of the day, and felt that it was small return for Ricks's condescension. "How much you got left?" asked Ricks, that night, as they stopped under a street light to take stock. Sandy held out a couple of dollars and a fifty-cent piece. "Enough to put on the eyes of two and a half dead men," he said as he curiously eyed the strange money. "One, two,--two and a half," counted Ricks. "Shillings?" asked Sandy, amazed. Ricks nodded. "And have I blowed all that to-day?" "What of it?" asked Ricks. "I seen a bloke onct what lit his cigar with a bill like the one you had!" "But the doctor said it was two pounds," insisted Sandy, incredulously. He did not realize the expense of a personally conducted tour of the Bowery. "Well, it's went," said Ricks, resignedly. "You can't count on settin' up biz with what's left." Sandy's brows clouded, and he shifted his position restlessly. "Now I ax yerself, Ricks, what'u'd you do?" he said. "Me? I don't give advice to nobody. But effen it was me I'd know mighty quick what to do." "What?" said Sandy, eagerly. "Buy a dawg." "A dog? I ain't goin' blind." "Lor'! but you're a softhorn," said Ricks, contemptuously. "I s'pose you'd count on leadin' him round by a pink ribbon." "Oh, you mean a fighter?" "Sure. My last dawg could do ever'thing in sight. She was so game she went after herself in a lookin'-glass and got kilt. Oh, they's money in dawgs, and I knows how to make 'em win ever' time." Sandy, tired as he was from the day's excitement, insisted upon going in search of one at once. He already had visions of becoming the proud owner of a canine champion that would put him immediately into the position of lighting his cigar with a two-pound note. The first three weeks of their experience on the road went far to realize their expectations. The bulldog, which had been bought in partnership, proved a conquering hero. Through the long summer days the boys tramped over the country, peddling their wares, and by night they conducted sundry unlawful encounters wherever an opponent could be found. Sandy enjoyed the peddling. It was astonishing what friendly sociability and confidential intimacy were established by the sale of blue suspenders and pink soap. He left a line of smiling testimonials in his wake. But if the days were proving satisfactory, so much could not be said of the nights. Even the phenomenal luck that followed his dog failed to keep up his enthusiasm. "You ain't a nachrul sport," complained Ricks. "That's your trouble. When the last fight was on, you set on the fence and listened at a' ole idiot scrapin' a fiddle down in the valley." Sandy made a feeble defense, but he knew in his soul it was so. Affairs reached a climax one night in an old barn on the outskirts of a town. A fight was about to begin when Sandy discovered Ricks judiciously administering a sedative to the enemy's dog. Then understanding dawned upon him, and his rage was elemental. With a valor that lacked the better part of discretion, he hurled himself through the crowd and fell upon Ricks. An hour later, bruised, bloody, and vanquished, he stumbled along through the dreary night. Hot with rage and defeat, utterly ignorant of his whereabouts, his one friend turned foe, he was indeed in sorry plight. He climbed over the fence and lay face downward in the long, cool grass, stretching his bruised and aching body along the ground. A gentle night wind rustled above him, and by and by a star peeped out, then another and another. Before he knew it, he was listening to the frogs and katydids, and wondering what they were talking about. He ceased to think about Ricks and his woes, and gave himself up to the delicious, drowsy peace that was all about him. For, child of nature that he was, he had turned to the only mother he knew. CHAPTER IV SIDE-TRACKED The next morning, at the nearest railroad station, an irate cattleman was trying to hire some one to take charge of a car of live stock which was on its way to a great exposition in a neighboring city. The man he had counted on had not appeared, and the train was about due. As he was turning away in desperation he felt a tug at his elbow. Looking around, he saw a queer figure with a countenance that resembled a first attempt at a charcoal sketch from life: one cheek was larger than the other, the mouth was sadly out of drawing, the eyes shone out from among the bruises like the sun from behind the clouds. But if the features were disfigured, the smile was none the less courageous. Sandy had found a friendly sympathizer at a neighboring farm-house, had been given a good breakfast, had made his toilet, and was ready for the next round in the fight of life. "I'll be doin' yer job, sir, whatever it is," he said pleasantly. The man eyed him with misgiving, but his need was urgent. "All you have to do is to stay in the car and look after the cattle. My man will meet you when you reach the city. Do you think you can do it?" "Just keep company with the cows?" cried Sandy. "Sure and I can!" So the bargain was struck, and that night found him in the great city with a dollar in his pocket and a promise of work in the morning. Tired and sore from the experiences of the night before, he sought a cheap lodging-house near by. A hook-nosed woman, carrying a smoking lamp, conducted him to a room under the eaves. It was small and suffocating. He involuntarily lifted his hands and touched the ceiling. "It's like a boilin' potato I feel," he said; "and the pot's so little and the lid so tight!" He went to the window, and taking out the nail that held down the sash, pushed it up. Below him lay the great, bustling city, cabs and cars in constant motion, long lines of blazing lights marking the thoroughfares, the thunder of trains in the big station, and above and below and through it all a dull monotonous roar, like the faraway unceasing cry of a hungry beast. He sank on his knees by the window, and a restless, nervous look came into his eyes. "It presses in, too," he thought. "It's all crowdin' over me. I'm just me by myself, all alone." A tear made a white course down his grimy cheek, then another and another. He brushed them impatiently away with the cap he still held in his hand. Rising abruptly, he turned away from the window, and the hot air of the room again smote him. The smoking lamp had blackened the chimney, and as he bent to turn it down, he caught his reflection in a small mirror over the table. What the bruises and swelling had left undone the cheap mirror completed. He started back. Was that the boy he knew as himself? Was that Sandy Kilday who had come to America to seek his fortune? He stared in a sort of fascinated horror at that other boy in the mirror. Before he had been afraid to be by himself, now he was afraid of himself. He seized his cap, and blowing out the lamp, plunged down four flights of steep narrow steps and out into the street. A number of people were crowding into a street-car marked "Exposition." Sandy, ever a straw in the current, joined them. Once more down among his fellow-men, he began to feel more comfortable. He cheerfully paid his entrance fee with one of the two silver coins in his pocket. The first building he entered was the art gallery, and the first picture that caught his eye held him spellbound. He sat before it all the evening with fascinated eyes, devouring every detail and oblivious to the curious interest he was attracting; for the huge canvas represented the Knights of the Round Table, and he had at last found friends. All the way back he thought about the picture; it was not until he reached his room that the former loneliness returned. But even then it was not for long. A pair of yellow eyes peered around the window-sill, and a plaintive "meow" begged for admittance. It was plainly Providence that guided that thin and ill-treated kitten to Sandy's window. The welcome it received must have completely restored its shaken faith in human nature. Tired as he was, Sandy went out and bought some milk. He wanted to establish a firm friendship; for if he was to stay in this lonely city, he must have something to love, if only a prodigal kitten of doubtful pedigree. During the long, hot days that followed Sandy worked faithfully at the depot. The regular hours and confinement seemed doubly irksome after the bohemian life on the road. The Exposition was his salvation. No sacrifice seemed too great to enable him to get beyond that magic gate. For the "Knights of the Round Table" was but the beginning of miles and miles of wonderful pictures. He even bought a catalogue, and, prompted by a natural curiosity for anything that interested him, learned the names of the artists he liked best, and the bits of biography attached to each. He would recite these to the yellow kitten when he got back to his little hot-box of a room. One night the art gallery was closed, and he went into another big building where a crowd of people were seated. At one end of it was a great pipe-organ, and after a while some one began to play. With his cap tightly grasped in both hands, he tiptoed down the center aisle and stood breathlessly drinking in the wonderful tones that seemed to be coming from his own heart. "Get out of the way, boy," said an usher. "You are blocking the aisle." A queer-appearing lady who looked like a man touched his elbow. "Here's a seat," she said in a deep voice. "Thank you, sir," said Sandy, absently. He scarcely knew whether he was sitting or standing. He only wanted to be let alone, so that he could listen to those strange, beautiful sounds that made a shiver of joy go down his back. Art had had her day; it was Music's turn. When the last number had been played, he turned to the queer lady: "Do they do it every night?" She smiled at his enthusiasm: "Wednesdays and Saturdays." "Say," said Sandy, confidentially, "if you come first do you save me a seat, and I'll do the same by you." From that time on he decided to be a musician, and he lived on two scanty meals a day in order to attend the concerts. But this exalted scheme of high thinking and plain living soon became irksome. One day, when his loneliness weighed most heavily upon him, he was sent with a message out to the switch-station. As he tramped back along the track he spied a familiar figure ahead of him. There was no mistaking that short, slouching body with the peddler's pack strapped on its back. With a cry of joy, Sandy bounded after Ricks Wilson. He actually hugged him in his joy to be once more with some one he knew. Ricks glanced uneasily at the scar above his eye. Sandy clapped his hand over it and laughed. "It's all right, Ricks; a miss is as good as a mile. I ain't mad any more. It's straight home with me you are goin'; and if we can get the two feet of you into me bit of a room, we'll have a dinner that's fit for a king." On the way they laid in a supply of provisions, Sandy even going to the expense of a bottle of beer for Ricks. The yellow kitten arched her back and showed general signs of hostility when the stranger was introduced. But her unfriendly demonstrations were ignored. Ricks was the honored guest, and Sandy extended to him the full hospitality of the establishment. "Put your pack on the floor and yerself in the chair, and I'll get ye filled up in the blink of an eyelash. Don't be mindin' the cat, Ricks. She's just lettin' on she don't take to you. She give me the wink on the sly." Ricks, expanding under the influence of food and drink, became eloquent. He recounted courageous adventures of the past, and outlined marvelous schemes for the future, by which he was going to make a short cut to fame and glory. When it was time for him to go, Sandy heaved a sigh of regret. For two hours he had been beguiled by Ricks's romances, and now he had to go back to the humdrum duties at the depot, and receive a sound rating for his belated appearance. "Which way might you be goin', Ricks?" he asked wistfully. "Same place I started fer," said Ricks. "Kentucky." The will-o'-the-wisp, which had been hiding his light, suddenly swung it full in the eyes of Sandy. Once more he saw the little maid of his dreams, and once more he threw discretion to the winds and followed the vision. Hastily collecting his few possessions, he rolled them into a bundle, and slipping the surprised kitten into his pocket, he gladly followed Ricks once more out into the broad green meadows, along the white and shining roads that lead over the hills to Kentucky. CHAPTER V SANDY RETIRES FROM BUSINESS "This here is too blame slow fer me," said Ricks, one chilly night in late September, as he and Sandy huddled against a haystack and settled up their weekly accounts. "Fifty-five cents! Now ain't that a' o'nery dab? Here's a quarter fer you and thirty cents fer me; that's as even as you kin split it." "It's the microscopes that'll be sellin'," said Sandy, hopefully, as he pulled his coat collar about his ears and shivered. "The man as sold 'em to me said they was a great bargain entirely. He thought there was money in 'em." "For him," said Ricks, contemptuously. "It's like the man what gulled us on the penknives. I lay to git even with him, all right." "But he give us the night's lodgin' and some breakfast," said Sandy. Ricks took a long drink from a short bottle, then holding it before him, he said impressively: "A feller could do me ninety-nine good turns, and if he done me one bad one it would wipe 'em all out. I got to git even with anybody what does me dirty, if it takes me all my life." "But don't you forget to remember?" "Not me. I ain't that kind." Sandy leaned wearily against the haystack and tried to shelter himself from the wind. A continued diet of bread and water had made him sensitive to the changes in the weather. "This here grub is kinder hard on yer head-rails," said Ricks, trying to bite through a piece of stale bread. A baker had let them have three loaves for a dime because they were old and hard. Sandy cast a longing look at Ricks's short bottle. It seemed to remedy so many ills, heat or cold, thirst or hunger. But the strict principles applied during his tender years made him hesitate. "I wish we hadn't lost the kitten," he said, feeling the need of a more cheerful companion. "I'm a-goin' to git another dawg," announced Ricks. "I'm sick of this here doin's." "Ain't we goin' to be turfmen?" asked Sandy, who had listened by the hour to thrilling accounts of life on the track, and had accepted Ricks's ambition as his own. "Not on twenty cents per week," growled Ricks. Sandy's heart sank; he knew what a new dog meant. He burrowed in the hay and tried to sleep, but there was a queer pain that seemed to catch hold of his breath whenever he breathed down deep. It rained the next day, and they tramped disconsolately through village after village. They had oil-cloth covers for their baskets, but their own backs were soaked to the skin. Toward evening they came to the top of a hill, from which they could look directly down upon a large town lying comfortably in the crook of a river's elbow. The rain had stopped, and the belated sun, struggling through the clouds, made up for lost time by reflecting itself in every curve of the winding stream, in every puddle along the road, and in every pane of glass that faced the west. "That's a nobby hoss," said Ricks, pointing down the hill. "What's the matter with the feller?" A slight, delicate-looking young man was lying in the road, between the horse and the fence. As the boys came up he stirred and tried to rise. "He's off his nut," said Ricks, starting to pass on; but Sandy stopped. "Get a fall?" he asked. The strange boy shook his head. "I guess I fainted. I must have ridden too hard. I'll be all right in a minute." He leaned his head against a tree and closed his eyes. Sandy eyed him curiously, taking in all the details of his riding-costume down to the short whip with the silver mounting. "I say, Ricks," he called to his companion, who was inspecting the horse, "can't we do somethin' for him?" Ricks reluctantly produced the short bottle. "I'm all right," insisted the boy, "if you'll just give me a lift to the saddle." But his eager eyes followed the bottle, and before Ricks had returned it to his pocket he held out his hand. "I believe I will take a drink if you don't mind." He drained the contents and then handed a coin to Ricks. "Now, if you'll help me," continued the stranger. "There! Thank you very much." "Say, what town is this, anyway?" asked Ricks. "Clayton," said the boy, trying to keep his horse from backing. "Looks like somethin' was doin'," said Ricks. "Circus, I believe." "Then I don't blame your nag for wantin' to go back!" cried Sandy. "Come on, Ricks; let's take in the show!" Half-way down the hill he turned. "Haven't we seen that fellow before, Ricks?" "Not as I knows of. He looked kinder pale and shaky, but you bet yer life he knowed how to hit the bottle." "He was sick," urged Sandy. "An' thirsty," added Ricks, with a smile of superior wisdom. The circus seemed such a timely opportunity to do business that they decided to rent a stand that night and sell their wares on the street corner. Ricks went on into town to arrange matters, while Sandy stopped in a grocery to buy their supper. His interest in the show had been of short duration. He felt listless and tired, something seemed to be buzzing continually in his head, and he shivered in his damp clothes. In the grocery he sat on a barrel and leaned his head against the wall. "What you shivering about?" asked the fat woman behind the counter, as she tied up his small package. "I feel like me skeleton was doin' a jig inside of me," said Sandy through chattering teeth. "Looks to me like you got a chill," said the fat woman. "You wait here, and I'll go git you some hot coffee." She disappeared in the rear of the store, and soon returned with a small coffee-pot and a cup and saucer. Sandy drank two cups and a half, then he asked the price. "Price?" repeated the woman, indignantly. "I reckon you don't know which side of the Ohio River you're on!" Sandy made up in gratitude what she declined in cash, and started on his way. At the corner of Main street and the bridge he found Ricks, who had rented a stand and was already arranging his wares. Sandy knelt on the sidewalk and unpacked his basket. "Only three bars of soap and seventy-five microscopes!" he exclaimed ruefully. "Let's be layin' fine stress on the microscopes, Ricks." "You do the jawin', Sandy. I ain't much on givin' 'em the talk," said Ricks. "Chuck a jolly at 'em and keep 'em hangin' round." As dark came on, trade began. The three bars of soap were sold, and a purple necktie. Sandy saw that public taste must be guided in the proper direction. He stepped up on a box and began eloquently to enumerate the diverse uses of microscopes. At each end of the stand a flaring torch lighted up the scene. The light fell on the careless, laughing faces in front, on Ricks Wilson, black-browed and suspicious, in the rear, and it fell full on Sandy, who stood on high and harangued the crowd. It fell on his broad, straight shoulders and on his shining tumbled hair; but it was not the light of the torch that gave the brightness to his eyes and the flush to his cheek. His head was throbbing, but he felt a curious sense of elation. He felt that he could stand there and talk the rest of his life. He made the crowd listen, he made it laugh, he made it buy. He told stories and sang songs, he coaxed and persuaded, until only a few microscopes were left and the old cigar-box was heavy with silver. "Step right up and take a look at a fly's leg! Every one ought to have a microscope in his home. When you get hard up it will make a dime look like a dollar, and a dollar like a five-dollar gold piece. Step right up! I ain't kiddin' you. Five cents for two looks, and fifteen for the microscope." Suddenly he faltered. At the edge of the crowd he had recognized two faces. They were sensitive slender faces, strangely alike in feature and unlike in expression. The young horseman of the afternoon was impatiently pushing his way through the crowd, while close behind him was a dainty girl with brown eyes slightly lifted at the outer corners, who held back in laughing wonder to watch the scene. "Ricks," said Sandy, lowering his voice unsteadily, "is this Kentucky?" "Yep; we crossed the line to-day." "I can't talk no more," said Sandy. "You'll have to be doin' it. I'm sick." It was not only the fever that was burning in his veins, and making him bury his hot head in his hands and wish he had never been born. It was shame and humiliation, and all because of the look on the face of the girl at the edge of the crowd. He sat in the shadow of the big box and fought his fight. The coffee and the excitement no longer kept him up; he was faint, and his breath came short. Above him he heard Ricks's rasping voice still talking to the few customers who were left. He knew, without glancing up, just how Ricks looked when he said the words; he knew how his teeth pushed his lips back, and how his restless little eyes watched everything at once. A sudden fierce repulsion swept over him for peddling, for Ricks, for himself. "And to think," he whispered, with a sob in his throat, "that I can't ever speak to a girl like that!" Ricks, jubilant over the success of the evening, decided to follow the circus, which was to be in the next town on the following day. "It ain't fur," he said. "We kin push on to-night and be ready to open early in the morning." Sandy, miserable in body and spirit, mechanically obeyed instructions. His head was getting queerer all the time, and he could not remember whether it was day or night. About a mile from Clayton he sank down by the road. "Say, Ricks," he said abruptly; "I'm after quittin' peddlin'." "What you goin' to do?" "I'm goin' to school." If Sandy had announced his intention of putting on baby clothes and being wheeled in a perambulator, Ricks could not have been more astonished. "What?" he asked in genuine doubt. "'Cause I want to be the right sort," burst out Sandy, passionately. "This ain't the way you get to be the right sort." Ricks surveyed him contemptuously. "Look-a here, are you comin' along of me or not?" "I can't," said Sandy, weakly. Ricks shifted his pack, and with never a parting word or a backward look he left his business partner of three months lying by the roadside, and tramped away in the darkness. Sandy started up to follow him; he tried to call, but he had no strength. He lay with his face on the road and talked. He knew there was nobody to listen, but still he kept on, softly talking about microscopes and pink soap, crying out again and again that he couldn't ever speak to a girl like that. After a long while somebody came. At first he thought he must have gone back to the land behind the peat-flames, for it was a great black witch who bent over him, and he instinctively felt about in the grass for the tender, soft hand which he used to press against his cheek. He found instead the hand of the witch herself, and he drew back in terror. "Fer de Lawd sake, honey, what's de matter wif you?" asked a kindly voice. Sandy opened his eyes. A tall old negro woman bent over him, her head tied up in a turban, and a shawl about her shoulders. "Did you git runned over?" she asked, peering down at him anxiously. Sandy tried to explain, but it was all the old mixture of soap and microscopes and never being able to speak to her. He knew he was talking at random, but he could not say the things he thought. "Where'd you come from, boy?" "Curragh Chase, Limerick," murmured Sandy. "'Fore de Lawd, he's done been cunjered!" cried the old woman, aghast. "I'll git it outen of you, chile. You jus' come home wif yer Aunt Melvy; she'll take keer of you. Put yer arm on my shoulder; dat's right. Don't you mind where you gwine at. I got yer bundle. It ain't fur. Hit's dat little house a-hangin' on de side of de hill. Dey calls it 'Who'd 'a' Thought It,' 'ca'se you nebber would 'a' thought of puttin' a house dere. Dat's right; lean on yer mammy. I'll git dem old cunjers outen you." Thus encouraged and supported, Sandy stumbled on through the dark, up a hillside that seemed never to end, across a bridge, then into a tiny log cabin, where he dropped exhausted. Off and on during the night he knew that there was a fire in the room, and that strange things were happening to him. But it was all so queer and unnatural that he did not know where the dreams left off and the real began. He was vaguely conscious of his left foot being tied to the right bedpost, of a lock of his hair being cut off and burned on the hearth, and of a low monotonous chant that seemed to rise and fall with the flicker of the flames. And when he cried out with the pain in his sleep, a kindly black face bent over him, and the chant changed into a soothing murmur: "Nebber you min', sonny; Aunt Melvy gwine git dem cunjers out. She gwine stay by you. You hol' on to her han', an' go to sleep; she'll git dem old cunjers out." CHAPTER VI HOLLIS FARM Clayton was an easy-going, prosperous old town which, in the enthusiasm of youth, had started to climb the long hill to the north, but growing indolent with age, | na | How many times the word 'na' appears in the text? | 0 |
ventured a step nearer and continued his observations. As he did so, he made a discovery. The soft white of her cheek was gradually becoming pinker and pinker; the color which began under her lace collar stole up and up until it reached her eyes, which still gazed determinedly before her. Sandy admired it as a traveler admires a sunrise, and with as little idea of having caused it. The line of passengers moved slowly forward, and his heart sank. Suddenly his eyes fell upon the little hand-bag which she carried. On one end, in small white letters, was: "Ruth Nelson, Kentucky, U.S.A." He watched her until she was lost to view, then he turned eagerly back into the crowd. Elbowing his way forward, he seized Ricks by the arm. "Hi, there!" he cried; "I've changed me mind. I'm goin' with you to Kentucky!" So this impetuous knight errant enlisted under the will-o'-the-wisp love, and started joyously forth upon his quest. CHAPTER III THE CURSE OF WEALTH It is an oft-proved adage that for ten who can stand adversity there is but one who can stand prosperity. Sandy, alas! was no exception to any rule which went to prove the frailty of human nature. The sudden acquisition of ten dollars cast him into a whirlpool of temptation from which he made little effort to escape. "I ain't goin' on to-day," announced Ricks. "I'm goin' to lay in my goods for peddlin'. I reckon you kin come along of me." Sandy accepted a long and strong cigar, tilted his hat, and unconsciously caught Ricks's slouching gait as they went down the street. After all, it was rather pleasant to associate with sophistication. "We'll git on the outside of a little dinner," said Ricks; "and I'll mosey round in the stores awhile, then I'll take you to a show or two. It's a mighty good thing for you that you got me along." Sandy thought so too. He cheerfully stood treat for the rest of the day, and felt that it was small return for Ricks's condescension. "How much you got left?" asked Ricks, that night, as they stopped under a street light to take stock. Sandy held out a couple of dollars and a fifty-cent piece. "Enough to put on the eyes of two and a half dead men," he said as he curiously eyed the strange money. "One, two,--two and a half," counted Ricks. "Shillings?" asked Sandy, amazed. Ricks nodded. "And have I blowed all that to-day?" "What of it?" asked Ricks. "I seen a bloke onct what lit his cigar with a bill like the one you had!" "But the doctor said it was two pounds," insisted Sandy, incredulously. He did not realize the expense of a personally conducted tour of the Bowery. "Well, it's went," said Ricks, resignedly. "You can't count on settin' up biz with what's left." Sandy's brows clouded, and he shifted his position restlessly. "Now I ax yerself, Ricks, what'u'd you do?" he said. "Me? I don't give advice to nobody. But effen it was me I'd know mighty quick what to do." "What?" said Sandy, eagerly. "Buy a dawg." "A dog? I ain't goin' blind." "Lor'! but you're a softhorn," said Ricks, contemptuously. "I s'pose you'd count on leadin' him round by a pink ribbon." "Oh, you mean a fighter?" "Sure. My last dawg could do ever'thing in sight. She was so game she went after herself in a lookin'-glass and got kilt. Oh, they's money in dawgs, and I knows how to make 'em win ever' time." Sandy, tired as he was from the day's excitement, insisted upon going in search of one at once. He already had visions of becoming the proud owner of a canine champion that would put him immediately into the position of lighting his cigar with a two-pound note. The first three weeks of their experience on the road went far to realize their expectations. The bulldog, which had been bought in partnership, proved a conquering hero. Through the long summer days the boys tramped over the country, peddling their wares, and by night they conducted sundry unlawful encounters wherever an opponent could be found. Sandy enjoyed the peddling. It was astonishing what friendly sociability and confidential intimacy were established by the sale of blue suspenders and pink soap. He left a line of smiling testimonials in his wake. But if the days were proving satisfactory, so much could not be said of the nights. Even the phenomenal luck that followed his dog failed to keep up his enthusiasm. "You ain't a nachrul sport," complained Ricks. "That's your trouble. When the last fight was on, you set on the fence and listened at a' ole idiot scrapin' a fiddle down in the valley." Sandy made a feeble defense, but he knew in his soul it was so. Affairs reached a climax one night in an old barn on the outskirts of a town. A fight was about to begin when Sandy discovered Ricks judiciously administering a sedative to the enemy's dog. Then understanding dawned upon him, and his rage was elemental. With a valor that lacked the better part of discretion, he hurled himself through the crowd and fell upon Ricks. An hour later, bruised, bloody, and vanquished, he stumbled along through the dreary night. Hot with rage and defeat, utterly ignorant of his whereabouts, his one friend turned foe, he was indeed in sorry plight. He climbed over the fence and lay face downward in the long, cool grass, stretching his bruised and aching body along the ground. A gentle night wind rustled above him, and by and by a star peeped out, then another and another. Before he knew it, he was listening to the frogs and katydids, and wondering what they were talking about. He ceased to think about Ricks and his woes, and gave himself up to the delicious, drowsy peace that was all about him. For, child of nature that he was, he had turned to the only mother he knew. CHAPTER IV SIDE-TRACKED The next morning, at the nearest railroad station, an irate cattleman was trying to hire some one to take charge of a car of live stock which was on its way to a great exposition in a neighboring city. The man he had counted on had not appeared, and the train was about due. As he was turning away in desperation he felt a tug at his elbow. Looking around, he saw a queer figure with a countenance that resembled a first attempt at a charcoal sketch from life: one cheek was larger than the other, the mouth was sadly out of drawing, the eyes shone out from among the bruises like the sun from behind the clouds. But if the features were disfigured, the smile was none the less courageous. Sandy had found a friendly sympathizer at a neighboring farm-house, had been given a good breakfast, had made his toilet, and was ready for the next round in the fight of life. "I'll be doin' yer job, sir, whatever it is," he said pleasantly. The man eyed him with misgiving, but his need was urgent. "All you have to do is to stay in the car and look after the cattle. My man will meet you when you reach the city. Do you think you can do it?" "Just keep company with the cows?" cried Sandy. "Sure and I can!" So the bargain was struck, and that night found him in the great city with a dollar in his pocket and a promise of work in the morning. Tired and sore from the experiences of the night before, he sought a cheap lodging-house near by. A hook-nosed woman, carrying a smoking lamp, conducted him to a room under the eaves. It was small and suffocating. He involuntarily lifted his hands and touched the ceiling. "It's like a boilin' potato I feel," he said; "and the pot's so little and the lid so tight!" He went to the window, and taking out the nail that held down the sash, pushed it up. Below him lay the great, bustling city, cabs and cars in constant motion, long lines of blazing lights marking the thoroughfares, the thunder of trains in the big station, and above and below and through it all a dull monotonous roar, like the faraway unceasing cry of a hungry beast. He sank on his knees by the window, and a restless, nervous look came into his eyes. "It presses in, too," he thought. "It's all crowdin' over me. I'm just me by myself, all alone." A tear made a white course down his grimy cheek, then another and another. He brushed them impatiently away with the cap he still held in his hand. Rising abruptly, he turned away from the window, and the hot air of the room again smote him. The smoking lamp had blackened the chimney, and as he bent to turn it down, he caught his reflection in a small mirror over the table. What the bruises and swelling had left undone the cheap mirror completed. He started back. Was that the boy he knew as himself? Was that Sandy Kilday who had come to America to seek his fortune? He stared in a sort of fascinated horror at that other boy in the mirror. Before he had been afraid to be by himself, now he was afraid of himself. He seized his cap, and blowing out the lamp, plunged down four flights of steep narrow steps and out into the street. A number of people were crowding into a street-car marked "Exposition." Sandy, ever a straw in the current, joined them. Once more down among his fellow-men, he began to feel more comfortable. He cheerfully paid his entrance fee with one of the two silver coins in his pocket. The first building he entered was the art gallery, and the first picture that caught his eye held him spellbound. He sat before it all the evening with fascinated eyes, devouring every detail and oblivious to the curious interest he was attracting; for the huge canvas represented the Knights of the Round Table, and he had at last found friends. All the way back he thought about the picture; it was not until he reached his room that the former loneliness returned. But even then it was not for long. A pair of yellow eyes peered around the window-sill, and a plaintive "meow" begged for admittance. It was plainly Providence that guided that thin and ill-treated kitten to Sandy's window. The welcome it received must have completely restored its shaken faith in human nature. Tired as he was, Sandy went out and bought some milk. He wanted to establish a firm friendship; for if he was to stay in this lonely city, he must have something to love, if only a prodigal kitten of doubtful pedigree. During the long, hot days that followed Sandy worked faithfully at the depot. The regular hours and confinement seemed doubly irksome after the bohemian life on the road. The Exposition was his salvation. No sacrifice seemed too great to enable him to get beyond that magic gate. For the "Knights of the Round Table" was but the beginning of miles and miles of wonderful pictures. He even bought a catalogue, and, prompted by a natural curiosity for anything that interested him, learned the names of the artists he liked best, and the bits of biography attached to each. He would recite these to the yellow kitten when he got back to his little hot-box of a room. One night the art gallery was closed, and he went into another big building where a crowd of people were seated. At one end of it was a great pipe-organ, and after a while some one began to play. With his cap tightly grasped in both hands, he tiptoed down the center aisle and stood breathlessly drinking in the wonderful tones that seemed to be coming from his own heart. "Get out of the way, boy," said an usher. "You are blocking the aisle." A queer-appearing lady who looked like a man touched his elbow. "Here's a seat," she said in a deep voice. "Thank you, sir," said Sandy, absently. He scarcely knew whether he was sitting or standing. He only wanted to be let alone, so that he could listen to those strange, beautiful sounds that made a shiver of joy go down his back. Art had had her day; it was Music's turn. When the last number had been played, he turned to the queer lady: "Do they do it every night?" She smiled at his enthusiasm: "Wednesdays and Saturdays." "Say," said Sandy, confidentially, "if you come first do you save me a seat, and I'll do the same by you." From that time on he decided to be a musician, and he lived on two scanty meals a day in order to attend the concerts. But this exalted scheme of high thinking and plain living soon became irksome. One day, when his loneliness weighed most heavily upon him, he was sent with a message out to the switch-station. As he tramped back along the track he spied a familiar figure ahead of him. There was no mistaking that short, slouching body with the peddler's pack strapped on its back. With a cry of joy, Sandy bounded after Ricks Wilson. He actually hugged him in his joy to be once more with some one he knew. Ricks glanced uneasily at the scar above his eye. Sandy clapped his hand over it and laughed. "It's all right, Ricks; a miss is as good as a mile. I ain't mad any more. It's straight home with me you are goin'; and if we can get the two feet of you into me bit of a room, we'll have a dinner that's fit for a king." On the way they laid in a supply of provisions, Sandy even going to the expense of a bottle of beer for Ricks. The yellow kitten arched her back and showed general signs of hostility when the stranger was introduced. But her unfriendly demonstrations were ignored. Ricks was the honored guest, and Sandy extended to him the full hospitality of the establishment. "Put your pack on the floor and yerself in the chair, and I'll get ye filled up in the blink of an eyelash. Don't be mindin' the cat, Ricks. She's just lettin' on she don't take to you. She give me the wink on the sly." Ricks, expanding under the influence of food and drink, became eloquent. He recounted courageous adventures of the past, and outlined marvelous schemes for the future, by which he was going to make a short cut to fame and glory. When it was time for him to go, Sandy heaved a sigh of regret. For two hours he had been beguiled by Ricks's romances, and now he had to go back to the humdrum duties at the depot, and receive a sound rating for his belated appearance. "Which way might you be goin', Ricks?" he asked wistfully. "Same place I started fer," said Ricks. "Kentucky." The will-o'-the-wisp, which had been hiding his light, suddenly swung it full in the eyes of Sandy. Once more he saw the little maid of his dreams, and once more he threw discretion to the winds and followed the vision. Hastily collecting his few possessions, he rolled them into a bundle, and slipping the surprised kitten into his pocket, he gladly followed Ricks once more out into the broad green meadows, along the white and shining roads that lead over the hills to Kentucky. CHAPTER V SANDY RETIRES FROM BUSINESS "This here is too blame slow fer me," said Ricks, one chilly night in late September, as he and Sandy huddled against a haystack and settled up their weekly accounts. "Fifty-five cents! Now ain't that a' o'nery dab? Here's a quarter fer you and thirty cents fer me; that's as even as you kin split it." "It's the microscopes that'll be sellin'," said Sandy, hopefully, as he pulled his coat collar about his ears and shivered. "The man as sold 'em to me said they was a great bargain entirely. He thought there was money in 'em." "For him," said Ricks, contemptuously. "It's like the man what gulled us on the penknives. I lay to git even with him, all right." "But he give us the night's lodgin' and some breakfast," said Sandy. Ricks took a long drink from a short bottle, then holding it before him, he said impressively: "A feller could do me ninety-nine good turns, and if he done me one bad one it would wipe 'em all out. I got to git even with anybody what does me dirty, if it takes me all my life." "But don't you forget to remember?" "Not me. I ain't that kind." Sandy leaned wearily against the haystack and tried to shelter himself from the wind. A continued diet of bread and water had made him sensitive to the changes in the weather. "This here grub is kinder hard on yer head-rails," said Ricks, trying to bite through a piece of stale bread. A baker had let them have three loaves for a dime because they were old and hard. Sandy cast a longing look at Ricks's short bottle. It seemed to remedy so many ills, heat or cold, thirst or hunger. But the strict principles applied during his tender years made him hesitate. "I wish we hadn't lost the kitten," he said, feeling the need of a more cheerful companion. "I'm a-goin' to git another dawg," announced Ricks. "I'm sick of this here doin's." "Ain't we goin' to be turfmen?" asked Sandy, who had listened by the hour to thrilling accounts of life on the track, and had accepted Ricks's ambition as his own. "Not on twenty cents per week," growled Ricks. Sandy's heart sank; he knew what a new dog meant. He burrowed in the hay and tried to sleep, but there was a queer pain that seemed to catch hold of his breath whenever he breathed down deep. It rained the next day, and they tramped disconsolately through village after village. They had oil-cloth covers for their baskets, but their own backs were soaked to the skin. Toward evening they came to the top of a hill, from which they could look directly down upon a large town lying comfortably in the crook of a river's elbow. The rain had stopped, and the belated sun, struggling through the clouds, made up for lost time by reflecting itself in every curve of the winding stream, in every puddle along the road, and in every pane of glass that faced the west. "That's a nobby hoss," said Ricks, pointing down the hill. "What's the matter with the feller?" A slight, delicate-looking young man was lying in the road, between the horse and the fence. As the boys came up he stirred and tried to rise. "He's off his nut," said Ricks, starting to pass on; but Sandy stopped. "Get a fall?" he asked. The strange boy shook his head. "I guess I fainted. I must have ridden too hard. I'll be all right in a minute." He leaned his head against a tree and closed his eyes. Sandy eyed him curiously, taking in all the details of his riding-costume down to the short whip with the silver mounting. "I say, Ricks," he called to his companion, who was inspecting the horse, "can't we do somethin' for him?" Ricks reluctantly produced the short bottle. "I'm all right," insisted the boy, "if you'll just give me a lift to the saddle." But his eager eyes followed the bottle, and before Ricks had returned it to his pocket he held out his hand. "I believe I will take a drink if you don't mind." He drained the contents and then handed a coin to Ricks. "Now, if you'll help me," continued the stranger. "There! Thank you very much." "Say, what town is this, anyway?" asked Ricks. "Clayton," said the boy, trying to keep his horse from backing. "Looks like somethin' was doin'," said Ricks. "Circus, I believe." "Then I don't blame your nag for wantin' to go back!" cried Sandy. "Come on, Ricks; let's take in the show!" Half-way down the hill he turned. "Haven't we seen that fellow before, Ricks?" "Not as I knows of. He looked kinder pale and shaky, but you bet yer life he knowed how to hit the bottle." "He was sick," urged Sandy. "An' thirsty," added Ricks, with a smile of superior wisdom. The circus seemed such a timely opportunity to do business that they decided to rent a stand that night and sell their wares on the street corner. Ricks went on into town to arrange matters, while Sandy stopped in a grocery to buy their supper. His interest in the show had been of short duration. He felt listless and tired, something seemed to be buzzing continually in his head, and he shivered in his damp clothes. In the grocery he sat on a barrel and leaned his head against the wall. "What you shivering about?" asked the fat woman behind the counter, as she tied up his small package. "I feel like me skeleton was doin' a jig inside of me," said Sandy through chattering teeth. "Looks to me like you got a chill," said the fat woman. "You wait here, and I'll go git you some hot coffee." She disappeared in the rear of the store, and soon returned with a small coffee-pot and a cup and saucer. Sandy drank two cups and a half, then he asked the price. "Price?" repeated the woman, indignantly. "I reckon you don't know which side of the Ohio River you're on!" Sandy made up in gratitude what she declined in cash, and started on his way. At the corner of Main street and the bridge he found Ricks, who had rented a stand and was already arranging his wares. Sandy knelt on the sidewalk and unpacked his basket. "Only three bars of soap and seventy-five microscopes!" he exclaimed ruefully. "Let's be layin' fine stress on the microscopes, Ricks." "You do the jawin', Sandy. I ain't much on givin' 'em the talk," said Ricks. "Chuck a jolly at 'em and keep 'em hangin' round." As dark came on, trade began. The three bars of soap were sold, and a purple necktie. Sandy saw that public taste must be guided in the proper direction. He stepped up on a box and began eloquently to enumerate the diverse uses of microscopes. At each end of the stand a flaring torch lighted up the scene. The light fell on the careless, laughing faces in front, on Ricks Wilson, black-browed and suspicious, in the rear, and it fell full on Sandy, who stood on high and harangued the crowd. It fell on his broad, straight shoulders and on his shining tumbled hair; but it was not the light of the torch that gave the brightness to his eyes and the flush to his cheek. His head was throbbing, but he felt a curious sense of elation. He felt that he could stand there and talk the rest of his life. He made the crowd listen, he made it laugh, he made it buy. He told stories and sang songs, he coaxed and persuaded, until only a few microscopes were left and the old cigar-box was heavy with silver. "Step right up and take a look at a fly's leg! Every one ought to have a microscope in his home. When you get hard up it will make a dime look like a dollar, and a dollar like a five-dollar gold piece. Step right up! I ain't kiddin' you. Five cents for two looks, and fifteen for the microscope." Suddenly he faltered. At the edge of the crowd he had recognized two faces. They were sensitive slender faces, strangely alike in feature and unlike in expression. The young horseman of the afternoon was impatiently pushing his way through the crowd, while close behind him was a dainty girl with brown eyes slightly lifted at the outer corners, who held back in laughing wonder to watch the scene. "Ricks," said Sandy, lowering his voice unsteadily, "is this Kentucky?" "Yep; we crossed the line to-day." "I can't talk no more," said Sandy. "You'll have to be doin' it. I'm sick." It was not only the fever that was burning in his veins, and making him bury his hot head in his hands and wish he had never been born. It was shame and humiliation, and all because of the look on the face of the girl at the edge of the crowd. He sat in the shadow of the big box and fought his fight. The coffee and the excitement no longer kept him up; he was faint, and his breath came short. Above him he heard Ricks's rasping voice still talking to the few customers who were left. He knew, without glancing up, just how Ricks looked when he said the words; he knew how his teeth pushed his lips back, and how his restless little eyes watched everything at once. A sudden fierce repulsion swept over him for peddling, for Ricks, for himself. "And to think," he whispered, with a sob in his throat, "that I can't ever speak to a girl like that!" Ricks, jubilant over the success of the evening, decided to follow the circus, which was to be in the next town on the following day. "It ain't fur," he said. "We kin push on to-night and be ready to open early in the morning." Sandy, miserable in body and spirit, mechanically obeyed instructions. His head was getting queerer all the time, and he could not remember whether it was day or night. About a mile from Clayton he sank down by the road. "Say, Ricks," he said abruptly; "I'm after quittin' peddlin'." "What you goin' to do?" "I'm goin' to school." If Sandy had announced his intention of putting on baby clothes and being wheeled in a perambulator, Ricks could not have been more astonished. "What?" he asked in genuine doubt. "'Cause I want to be the right sort," burst out Sandy, passionately. "This ain't the way you get to be the right sort." Ricks surveyed him contemptuously. "Look-a here, are you comin' along of me or not?" "I can't," said Sandy, weakly. Ricks shifted his pack, and with never a parting word or a backward look he left his business partner of three months lying by the roadside, and tramped away in the darkness. Sandy started up to follow him; he tried to call, but he had no strength. He lay with his face on the road and talked. He knew there was nobody to listen, but still he kept on, softly talking about microscopes and pink soap, crying out again and again that he couldn't ever speak to a girl like that. After a long while somebody came. At first he thought he must have gone back to the land behind the peat-flames, for it was a great black witch who bent over him, and he instinctively felt about in the grass for the tender, soft hand which he used to press against his cheek. He found instead the hand of the witch herself, and he drew back in terror. "Fer de Lawd sake, honey, what's de matter wif you?" asked a kindly voice. Sandy opened his eyes. A tall old negro woman bent over him, her head tied up in a turban, and a shawl about her shoulders. "Did you git runned over?" she asked, peering down at him anxiously. Sandy tried to explain, but it was all the old mixture of soap and microscopes and never being able to speak to her. He knew he was talking at random, but he could not say the things he thought. "Where'd you come from, boy?" "Curragh Chase, Limerick," murmured Sandy. "'Fore de Lawd, he's done been cunjered!" cried the old woman, aghast. "I'll git it outen of you, chile. You jus' come home wif yer Aunt Melvy; she'll take keer of you. Put yer arm on my shoulder; dat's right. Don't you mind where you gwine at. I got yer bundle. It ain't fur. Hit's dat little house a-hangin' on de side of de hill. Dey calls it 'Who'd 'a' Thought It,' 'ca'se you nebber would 'a' thought of puttin' a house dere. Dat's right; lean on yer mammy. I'll git dem old cunjers outen you." Thus encouraged and supported, Sandy stumbled on through the dark, up a hillside that seemed never to end, across a bridge, then into a tiny log cabin, where he dropped exhausted. Off and on during the night he knew that there was a fire in the room, and that strange things were happening to him. But it was all so queer and unnatural that he did not know where the dreams left off and the real began. He was vaguely conscious of his left foot being tied to the right bedpost, of a lock of his hair being cut off and burned on the hearth, and of a low monotonous chant that seemed to rise and fall with the flicker of the flames. And when he cried out with the pain in his sleep, a kindly black face bent over him, and the chant changed into a soothing murmur: "Nebber you min', sonny; Aunt Melvy gwine git dem cunjers out. She gwine stay by you. You hol' on to her han', an' go to sleep; she'll git dem old cunjers out." CHAPTER VI HOLLIS FARM Clayton was an easy-going, prosperous old town which, in the enthusiasm of youth, had started to climb the long hill to the north, but growing indolent with age, | aim | How many times the word 'aim' appears in the text? | 0 |
ventured a step nearer and continued his observations. As he did so, he made a discovery. The soft white of her cheek was gradually becoming pinker and pinker; the color which began under her lace collar stole up and up until it reached her eyes, which still gazed determinedly before her. Sandy admired it as a traveler admires a sunrise, and with as little idea of having caused it. The line of passengers moved slowly forward, and his heart sank. Suddenly his eyes fell upon the little hand-bag which she carried. On one end, in small white letters, was: "Ruth Nelson, Kentucky, U.S.A." He watched her until she was lost to view, then he turned eagerly back into the crowd. Elbowing his way forward, he seized Ricks by the arm. "Hi, there!" he cried; "I've changed me mind. I'm goin' with you to Kentucky!" So this impetuous knight errant enlisted under the will-o'-the-wisp love, and started joyously forth upon his quest. CHAPTER III THE CURSE OF WEALTH It is an oft-proved adage that for ten who can stand adversity there is but one who can stand prosperity. Sandy, alas! was no exception to any rule which went to prove the frailty of human nature. The sudden acquisition of ten dollars cast him into a whirlpool of temptation from which he made little effort to escape. "I ain't goin' on to-day," announced Ricks. "I'm goin' to lay in my goods for peddlin'. I reckon you kin come along of me." Sandy accepted a long and strong cigar, tilted his hat, and unconsciously caught Ricks's slouching gait as they went down the street. After all, it was rather pleasant to associate with sophistication. "We'll git on the outside of a little dinner," said Ricks; "and I'll mosey round in the stores awhile, then I'll take you to a show or two. It's a mighty good thing for you that you got me along." Sandy thought so too. He cheerfully stood treat for the rest of the day, and felt that it was small return for Ricks's condescension. "How much you got left?" asked Ricks, that night, as they stopped under a street light to take stock. Sandy held out a couple of dollars and a fifty-cent piece. "Enough to put on the eyes of two and a half dead men," he said as he curiously eyed the strange money. "One, two,--two and a half," counted Ricks. "Shillings?" asked Sandy, amazed. Ricks nodded. "And have I blowed all that to-day?" "What of it?" asked Ricks. "I seen a bloke onct what lit his cigar with a bill like the one you had!" "But the doctor said it was two pounds," insisted Sandy, incredulously. He did not realize the expense of a personally conducted tour of the Bowery. "Well, it's went," said Ricks, resignedly. "You can't count on settin' up biz with what's left." Sandy's brows clouded, and he shifted his position restlessly. "Now I ax yerself, Ricks, what'u'd you do?" he said. "Me? I don't give advice to nobody. But effen it was me I'd know mighty quick what to do." "What?" said Sandy, eagerly. "Buy a dawg." "A dog? I ain't goin' blind." "Lor'! but you're a softhorn," said Ricks, contemptuously. "I s'pose you'd count on leadin' him round by a pink ribbon." "Oh, you mean a fighter?" "Sure. My last dawg could do ever'thing in sight. She was so game she went after herself in a lookin'-glass and got kilt. Oh, they's money in dawgs, and I knows how to make 'em win ever' time." Sandy, tired as he was from the day's excitement, insisted upon going in search of one at once. He already had visions of becoming the proud owner of a canine champion that would put him immediately into the position of lighting his cigar with a two-pound note. The first three weeks of their experience on the road went far to realize their expectations. The bulldog, which had been bought in partnership, proved a conquering hero. Through the long summer days the boys tramped over the country, peddling their wares, and by night they conducted sundry unlawful encounters wherever an opponent could be found. Sandy enjoyed the peddling. It was astonishing what friendly sociability and confidential intimacy were established by the sale of blue suspenders and pink soap. He left a line of smiling testimonials in his wake. But if the days were proving satisfactory, so much could not be said of the nights. Even the phenomenal luck that followed his dog failed to keep up his enthusiasm. "You ain't a nachrul sport," complained Ricks. "That's your trouble. When the last fight was on, you set on the fence and listened at a' ole idiot scrapin' a fiddle down in the valley." Sandy made a feeble defense, but he knew in his soul it was so. Affairs reached a climax one night in an old barn on the outskirts of a town. A fight was about to begin when Sandy discovered Ricks judiciously administering a sedative to the enemy's dog. Then understanding dawned upon him, and his rage was elemental. With a valor that lacked the better part of discretion, he hurled himself through the crowd and fell upon Ricks. An hour later, bruised, bloody, and vanquished, he stumbled along through the dreary night. Hot with rage and defeat, utterly ignorant of his whereabouts, his one friend turned foe, he was indeed in sorry plight. He climbed over the fence and lay face downward in the long, cool grass, stretching his bruised and aching body along the ground. A gentle night wind rustled above him, and by and by a star peeped out, then another and another. Before he knew it, he was listening to the frogs and katydids, and wondering what they were talking about. He ceased to think about Ricks and his woes, and gave himself up to the delicious, drowsy peace that was all about him. For, child of nature that he was, he had turned to the only mother he knew. CHAPTER IV SIDE-TRACKED The next morning, at the nearest railroad station, an irate cattleman was trying to hire some one to take charge of a car of live stock which was on its way to a great exposition in a neighboring city. The man he had counted on had not appeared, and the train was about due. As he was turning away in desperation he felt a tug at his elbow. Looking around, he saw a queer figure with a countenance that resembled a first attempt at a charcoal sketch from life: one cheek was larger than the other, the mouth was sadly out of drawing, the eyes shone out from among the bruises like the sun from behind the clouds. But if the features were disfigured, the smile was none the less courageous. Sandy had found a friendly sympathizer at a neighboring farm-house, had been given a good breakfast, had made his toilet, and was ready for the next round in the fight of life. "I'll be doin' yer job, sir, whatever it is," he said pleasantly. The man eyed him with misgiving, but his need was urgent. "All you have to do is to stay in the car and look after the cattle. My man will meet you when you reach the city. Do you think you can do it?" "Just keep company with the cows?" cried Sandy. "Sure and I can!" So the bargain was struck, and that night found him in the great city with a dollar in his pocket and a promise of work in the morning. Tired and sore from the experiences of the night before, he sought a cheap lodging-house near by. A hook-nosed woman, carrying a smoking lamp, conducted him to a room under the eaves. It was small and suffocating. He involuntarily lifted his hands and touched the ceiling. "It's like a boilin' potato I feel," he said; "and the pot's so little and the lid so tight!" He went to the window, and taking out the nail that held down the sash, pushed it up. Below him lay the great, bustling city, cabs and cars in constant motion, long lines of blazing lights marking the thoroughfares, the thunder of trains in the big station, and above and below and through it all a dull monotonous roar, like the faraway unceasing cry of a hungry beast. He sank on his knees by the window, and a restless, nervous look came into his eyes. "It presses in, too," he thought. "It's all crowdin' over me. I'm just me by myself, all alone." A tear made a white course down his grimy cheek, then another and another. He brushed them impatiently away with the cap he still held in his hand. Rising abruptly, he turned away from the window, and the hot air of the room again smote him. The smoking lamp had blackened the chimney, and as he bent to turn it down, he caught his reflection in a small mirror over the table. What the bruises and swelling had left undone the cheap mirror completed. He started back. Was that the boy he knew as himself? Was that Sandy Kilday who had come to America to seek his fortune? He stared in a sort of fascinated horror at that other boy in the mirror. Before he had been afraid to be by himself, now he was afraid of himself. He seized his cap, and blowing out the lamp, plunged down four flights of steep narrow steps and out into the street. A number of people were crowding into a street-car marked "Exposition." Sandy, ever a straw in the current, joined them. Once more down among his fellow-men, he began to feel more comfortable. He cheerfully paid his entrance fee with one of the two silver coins in his pocket. The first building he entered was the art gallery, and the first picture that caught his eye held him spellbound. He sat before it all the evening with fascinated eyes, devouring every detail and oblivious to the curious interest he was attracting; for the huge canvas represented the Knights of the Round Table, and he had at last found friends. All the way back he thought about the picture; it was not until he reached his room that the former loneliness returned. But even then it was not for long. A pair of yellow eyes peered around the window-sill, and a plaintive "meow" begged for admittance. It was plainly Providence that guided that thin and ill-treated kitten to Sandy's window. The welcome it received must have completely restored its shaken faith in human nature. Tired as he was, Sandy went out and bought some milk. He wanted to establish a firm friendship; for if he was to stay in this lonely city, he must have something to love, if only a prodigal kitten of doubtful pedigree. During the long, hot days that followed Sandy worked faithfully at the depot. The regular hours and confinement seemed doubly irksome after the bohemian life on the road. The Exposition was his salvation. No sacrifice seemed too great to enable him to get beyond that magic gate. For the "Knights of the Round Table" was but the beginning of miles and miles of wonderful pictures. He even bought a catalogue, and, prompted by a natural curiosity for anything that interested him, learned the names of the artists he liked best, and the bits of biography attached to each. He would recite these to the yellow kitten when he got back to his little hot-box of a room. One night the art gallery was closed, and he went into another big building where a crowd of people were seated. At one end of it was a great pipe-organ, and after a while some one began to play. With his cap tightly grasped in both hands, he tiptoed down the center aisle and stood breathlessly drinking in the wonderful tones that seemed to be coming from his own heart. "Get out of the way, boy," said an usher. "You are blocking the aisle." A queer-appearing lady who looked like a man touched his elbow. "Here's a seat," she said in a deep voice. "Thank you, sir," said Sandy, absently. He scarcely knew whether he was sitting or standing. He only wanted to be let alone, so that he could listen to those strange, beautiful sounds that made a shiver of joy go down his back. Art had had her day; it was Music's turn. When the last number had been played, he turned to the queer lady: "Do they do it every night?" She smiled at his enthusiasm: "Wednesdays and Saturdays." "Say," said Sandy, confidentially, "if you come first do you save me a seat, and I'll do the same by you." From that time on he decided to be a musician, and he lived on two scanty meals a day in order to attend the concerts. But this exalted scheme of high thinking and plain living soon became irksome. One day, when his loneliness weighed most heavily upon him, he was sent with a message out to the switch-station. As he tramped back along the track he spied a familiar figure ahead of him. There was no mistaking that short, slouching body with the peddler's pack strapped on its back. With a cry of joy, Sandy bounded after Ricks Wilson. He actually hugged him in his joy to be once more with some one he knew. Ricks glanced uneasily at the scar above his eye. Sandy clapped his hand over it and laughed. "It's all right, Ricks; a miss is as good as a mile. I ain't mad any more. It's straight home with me you are goin'; and if we can get the two feet of you into me bit of a room, we'll have a dinner that's fit for a king." On the way they laid in a supply of provisions, Sandy even going to the expense of a bottle of beer for Ricks. The yellow kitten arched her back and showed general signs of hostility when the stranger was introduced. But her unfriendly demonstrations were ignored. Ricks was the honored guest, and Sandy extended to him the full hospitality of the establishment. "Put your pack on the floor and yerself in the chair, and I'll get ye filled up in the blink of an eyelash. Don't be mindin' the cat, Ricks. She's just lettin' on she don't take to you. She give me the wink on the sly." Ricks, expanding under the influence of food and drink, became eloquent. He recounted courageous adventures of the past, and outlined marvelous schemes for the future, by which he was going to make a short cut to fame and glory. When it was time for him to go, Sandy heaved a sigh of regret. For two hours he had been beguiled by Ricks's romances, and now he had to go back to the humdrum duties at the depot, and receive a sound rating for his belated appearance. "Which way might you be goin', Ricks?" he asked wistfully. "Same place I started fer," said Ricks. "Kentucky." The will-o'-the-wisp, which had been hiding his light, suddenly swung it full in the eyes of Sandy. Once more he saw the little maid of his dreams, and once more he threw discretion to the winds and followed the vision. Hastily collecting his few possessions, he rolled them into a bundle, and slipping the surprised kitten into his pocket, he gladly followed Ricks once more out into the broad green meadows, along the white and shining roads that lead over the hills to Kentucky. CHAPTER V SANDY RETIRES FROM BUSINESS "This here is too blame slow fer me," said Ricks, one chilly night in late September, as he and Sandy huddled against a haystack and settled up their weekly accounts. "Fifty-five cents! Now ain't that a' o'nery dab? Here's a quarter fer you and thirty cents fer me; that's as even as you kin split it." "It's the microscopes that'll be sellin'," said Sandy, hopefully, as he pulled his coat collar about his ears and shivered. "The man as sold 'em to me said they was a great bargain entirely. He thought there was money in 'em." "For him," said Ricks, contemptuously. "It's like the man what gulled us on the penknives. I lay to git even with him, all right." "But he give us the night's lodgin' and some breakfast," said Sandy. Ricks took a long drink from a short bottle, then holding it before him, he said impressively: "A feller could do me ninety-nine good turns, and if he done me one bad one it would wipe 'em all out. I got to git even with anybody what does me dirty, if it takes me all my life." "But don't you forget to remember?" "Not me. I ain't that kind." Sandy leaned wearily against the haystack and tried to shelter himself from the wind. A continued diet of bread and water had made him sensitive to the changes in the weather. "This here grub is kinder hard on yer head-rails," said Ricks, trying to bite through a piece of stale bread. A baker had let them have three loaves for a dime because they were old and hard. Sandy cast a longing look at Ricks's short bottle. It seemed to remedy so many ills, heat or cold, thirst or hunger. But the strict principles applied during his tender years made him hesitate. "I wish we hadn't lost the kitten," he said, feeling the need of a more cheerful companion. "I'm a-goin' to git another dawg," announced Ricks. "I'm sick of this here doin's." "Ain't we goin' to be turfmen?" asked Sandy, who had listened by the hour to thrilling accounts of life on the track, and had accepted Ricks's ambition as his own. "Not on twenty cents per week," growled Ricks. Sandy's heart sank; he knew what a new dog meant. He burrowed in the hay and tried to sleep, but there was a queer pain that seemed to catch hold of his breath whenever he breathed down deep. It rained the next day, and they tramped disconsolately through village after village. They had oil-cloth covers for their baskets, but their own backs were soaked to the skin. Toward evening they came to the top of a hill, from which they could look directly down upon a large town lying comfortably in the crook of a river's elbow. The rain had stopped, and the belated sun, struggling through the clouds, made up for lost time by reflecting itself in every curve of the winding stream, in every puddle along the road, and in every pane of glass that faced the west. "That's a nobby hoss," said Ricks, pointing down the hill. "What's the matter with the feller?" A slight, delicate-looking young man was lying in the road, between the horse and the fence. As the boys came up he stirred and tried to rise. "He's off his nut," said Ricks, starting to pass on; but Sandy stopped. "Get a fall?" he asked. The strange boy shook his head. "I guess I fainted. I must have ridden too hard. I'll be all right in a minute." He leaned his head against a tree and closed his eyes. Sandy eyed him curiously, taking in all the details of his riding-costume down to the short whip with the silver mounting. "I say, Ricks," he called to his companion, who was inspecting the horse, "can't we do somethin' for him?" Ricks reluctantly produced the short bottle. "I'm all right," insisted the boy, "if you'll just give me a lift to the saddle." But his eager eyes followed the bottle, and before Ricks had returned it to his pocket he held out his hand. "I believe I will take a drink if you don't mind." He drained the contents and then handed a coin to Ricks. "Now, if you'll help me," continued the stranger. "There! Thank you very much." "Say, what town is this, anyway?" asked Ricks. "Clayton," said the boy, trying to keep his horse from backing. "Looks like somethin' was doin'," said Ricks. "Circus, I believe." "Then I don't blame your nag for wantin' to go back!" cried Sandy. "Come on, Ricks; let's take in the show!" Half-way down the hill he turned. "Haven't we seen that fellow before, Ricks?" "Not as I knows of. He looked kinder pale and shaky, but you bet yer life he knowed how to hit the bottle." "He was sick," urged Sandy. "An' thirsty," added Ricks, with a smile of superior wisdom. The circus seemed such a timely opportunity to do business that they decided to rent a stand that night and sell their wares on the street corner. Ricks went on into town to arrange matters, while Sandy stopped in a grocery to buy their supper. His interest in the show had been of short duration. He felt listless and tired, something seemed to be buzzing continually in his head, and he shivered in his damp clothes. In the grocery he sat on a barrel and leaned his head against the wall. "What you shivering about?" asked the fat woman behind the counter, as she tied up his small package. "I feel like me skeleton was doin' a jig inside of me," said Sandy through chattering teeth. "Looks to me like you got a chill," said the fat woman. "You wait here, and I'll go git you some hot coffee." She disappeared in the rear of the store, and soon returned with a small coffee-pot and a cup and saucer. Sandy drank two cups and a half, then he asked the price. "Price?" repeated the woman, indignantly. "I reckon you don't know which side of the Ohio River you're on!" Sandy made up in gratitude what she declined in cash, and started on his way. At the corner of Main street and the bridge he found Ricks, who had rented a stand and was already arranging his wares. Sandy knelt on the sidewalk and unpacked his basket. "Only three bars of soap and seventy-five microscopes!" he exclaimed ruefully. "Let's be layin' fine stress on the microscopes, Ricks." "You do the jawin', Sandy. I ain't much on givin' 'em the talk," said Ricks. "Chuck a jolly at 'em and keep 'em hangin' round." As dark came on, trade began. The three bars of soap were sold, and a purple necktie. Sandy saw that public taste must be guided in the proper direction. He stepped up on a box and began eloquently to enumerate the diverse uses of microscopes. At each end of the stand a flaring torch lighted up the scene. The light fell on the careless, laughing faces in front, on Ricks Wilson, black-browed and suspicious, in the rear, and it fell full on Sandy, who stood on high and harangued the crowd. It fell on his broad, straight shoulders and on his shining tumbled hair; but it was not the light of the torch that gave the brightness to his eyes and the flush to his cheek. His head was throbbing, but he felt a curious sense of elation. He felt that he could stand there and talk the rest of his life. He made the crowd listen, he made it laugh, he made it buy. He told stories and sang songs, he coaxed and persuaded, until only a few microscopes were left and the old cigar-box was heavy with silver. "Step right up and take a look at a fly's leg! Every one ought to have a microscope in his home. When you get hard up it will make a dime look like a dollar, and a dollar like a five-dollar gold piece. Step right up! I ain't kiddin' you. Five cents for two looks, and fifteen for the microscope." Suddenly he faltered. At the edge of the crowd he had recognized two faces. They were sensitive slender faces, strangely alike in feature and unlike in expression. The young horseman of the afternoon was impatiently pushing his way through the crowd, while close behind him was a dainty girl with brown eyes slightly lifted at the outer corners, who held back in laughing wonder to watch the scene. "Ricks," said Sandy, lowering his voice unsteadily, "is this Kentucky?" "Yep; we crossed the line to-day." "I can't talk no more," said Sandy. "You'll have to be doin' it. I'm sick." It was not only the fever that was burning in his veins, and making him bury his hot head in his hands and wish he had never been born. It was shame and humiliation, and all because of the look on the face of the girl at the edge of the crowd. He sat in the shadow of the big box and fought his fight. The coffee and the excitement no longer kept him up; he was faint, and his breath came short. Above him he heard Ricks's rasping voice still talking to the few customers who were left. He knew, without glancing up, just how Ricks looked when he said the words; he knew how his teeth pushed his lips back, and how his restless little eyes watched everything at once. A sudden fierce repulsion swept over him for peddling, for Ricks, for himself. "And to think," he whispered, with a sob in his throat, "that I can't ever speak to a girl like that!" Ricks, jubilant over the success of the evening, decided to follow the circus, which was to be in the next town on the following day. "It ain't fur," he said. "We kin push on to-night and be ready to open early in the morning." Sandy, miserable in body and spirit, mechanically obeyed instructions. His head was getting queerer all the time, and he could not remember whether it was day or night. About a mile from Clayton he sank down by the road. "Say, Ricks," he said abruptly; "I'm after quittin' peddlin'." "What you goin' to do?" "I'm goin' to school." If Sandy had announced his intention of putting on baby clothes and being wheeled in a perambulator, Ricks could not have been more astonished. "What?" he asked in genuine doubt. "'Cause I want to be the right sort," burst out Sandy, passionately. "This ain't the way you get to be the right sort." Ricks surveyed him contemptuously. "Look-a here, are you comin' along of me or not?" "I can't," said Sandy, weakly. Ricks shifted his pack, and with never a parting word or a backward look he left his business partner of three months lying by the roadside, and tramped away in the darkness. Sandy started up to follow him; he tried to call, but he had no strength. He lay with his face on the road and talked. He knew there was nobody to listen, but still he kept on, softly talking about microscopes and pink soap, crying out again and again that he couldn't ever speak to a girl like that. After a long while somebody came. At first he thought he must have gone back to the land behind the peat-flames, for it was a great black witch who bent over him, and he instinctively felt about in the grass for the tender, soft hand which he used to press against his cheek. He found instead the hand of the witch herself, and he drew back in terror. "Fer de Lawd sake, honey, what's de matter wif you?" asked a kindly voice. Sandy opened his eyes. A tall old negro woman bent over him, her head tied up in a turban, and a shawl about her shoulders. "Did you git runned over?" she asked, peering down at him anxiously. Sandy tried to explain, but it was all the old mixture of soap and microscopes and never being able to speak to her. He knew he was talking at random, but he could not say the things he thought. "Where'd you come from, boy?" "Curragh Chase, Limerick," murmured Sandy. "'Fore de Lawd, he's done been cunjered!" cried the old woman, aghast. "I'll git it outen of you, chile. You jus' come home wif yer Aunt Melvy; she'll take keer of you. Put yer arm on my shoulder; dat's right. Don't you mind where you gwine at. I got yer bundle. It ain't fur. Hit's dat little house a-hangin' on de side of de hill. Dey calls it 'Who'd 'a' Thought It,' 'ca'se you nebber would 'a' thought of puttin' a house dere. Dat's right; lean on yer mammy. I'll git dem old cunjers outen you." Thus encouraged and supported, Sandy stumbled on through the dark, up a hillside that seemed never to end, across a bridge, then into a tiny log cabin, where he dropped exhausted. Off and on during the night he knew that there was a fire in the room, and that strange things were happening to him. But it was all so queer and unnatural that he did not know where the dreams left off and the real began. He was vaguely conscious of his left foot being tied to the right bedpost, of a lock of his hair being cut off and burned on the hearth, and of a low monotonous chant that seemed to rise and fall with the flicker of the flames. And when he cried out with the pain in his sleep, a kindly black face bent over him, and the chant changed into a soothing murmur: "Nebber you min', sonny; Aunt Melvy gwine git dem cunjers out. She gwine stay by you. You hol' on to her han', an' go to sleep; she'll git dem old cunjers out." CHAPTER VI HOLLIS FARM Clayton was an easy-going, prosperous old town which, in the enthusiasm of youth, had started to climb the long hill to the north, but growing indolent with age, | lamp | How many times the word 'lamp' appears in the text? | 3 |
ventured a step nearer and continued his observations. As he did so, he made a discovery. The soft white of her cheek was gradually becoming pinker and pinker; the color which began under her lace collar stole up and up until it reached her eyes, which still gazed determinedly before her. Sandy admired it as a traveler admires a sunrise, and with as little idea of having caused it. The line of passengers moved slowly forward, and his heart sank. Suddenly his eyes fell upon the little hand-bag which she carried. On one end, in small white letters, was: "Ruth Nelson, Kentucky, U.S.A." He watched her until she was lost to view, then he turned eagerly back into the crowd. Elbowing his way forward, he seized Ricks by the arm. "Hi, there!" he cried; "I've changed me mind. I'm goin' with you to Kentucky!" So this impetuous knight errant enlisted under the will-o'-the-wisp love, and started joyously forth upon his quest. CHAPTER III THE CURSE OF WEALTH It is an oft-proved adage that for ten who can stand adversity there is but one who can stand prosperity. Sandy, alas! was no exception to any rule which went to prove the frailty of human nature. The sudden acquisition of ten dollars cast him into a whirlpool of temptation from which he made little effort to escape. "I ain't goin' on to-day," announced Ricks. "I'm goin' to lay in my goods for peddlin'. I reckon you kin come along of me." Sandy accepted a long and strong cigar, tilted his hat, and unconsciously caught Ricks's slouching gait as they went down the street. After all, it was rather pleasant to associate with sophistication. "We'll git on the outside of a little dinner," said Ricks; "and I'll mosey round in the stores awhile, then I'll take you to a show or two. It's a mighty good thing for you that you got me along." Sandy thought so too. He cheerfully stood treat for the rest of the day, and felt that it was small return for Ricks's condescension. "How much you got left?" asked Ricks, that night, as they stopped under a street light to take stock. Sandy held out a couple of dollars and a fifty-cent piece. "Enough to put on the eyes of two and a half dead men," he said as he curiously eyed the strange money. "One, two,--two and a half," counted Ricks. "Shillings?" asked Sandy, amazed. Ricks nodded. "And have I blowed all that to-day?" "What of it?" asked Ricks. "I seen a bloke onct what lit his cigar with a bill like the one you had!" "But the doctor said it was two pounds," insisted Sandy, incredulously. He did not realize the expense of a personally conducted tour of the Bowery. "Well, it's went," said Ricks, resignedly. "You can't count on settin' up biz with what's left." Sandy's brows clouded, and he shifted his position restlessly. "Now I ax yerself, Ricks, what'u'd you do?" he said. "Me? I don't give advice to nobody. But effen it was me I'd know mighty quick what to do." "What?" said Sandy, eagerly. "Buy a dawg." "A dog? I ain't goin' blind." "Lor'! but you're a softhorn," said Ricks, contemptuously. "I s'pose you'd count on leadin' him round by a pink ribbon." "Oh, you mean a fighter?" "Sure. My last dawg could do ever'thing in sight. She was so game she went after herself in a lookin'-glass and got kilt. Oh, they's money in dawgs, and I knows how to make 'em win ever' time." Sandy, tired as he was from the day's excitement, insisted upon going in search of one at once. He already had visions of becoming the proud owner of a canine champion that would put him immediately into the position of lighting his cigar with a two-pound note. The first three weeks of their experience on the road went far to realize their expectations. The bulldog, which had been bought in partnership, proved a conquering hero. Through the long summer days the boys tramped over the country, peddling their wares, and by night they conducted sundry unlawful encounters wherever an opponent could be found. Sandy enjoyed the peddling. It was astonishing what friendly sociability and confidential intimacy were established by the sale of blue suspenders and pink soap. He left a line of smiling testimonials in his wake. But if the days were proving satisfactory, so much could not be said of the nights. Even the phenomenal luck that followed his dog failed to keep up his enthusiasm. "You ain't a nachrul sport," complained Ricks. "That's your trouble. When the last fight was on, you set on the fence and listened at a' ole idiot scrapin' a fiddle down in the valley." Sandy made a feeble defense, but he knew in his soul it was so. Affairs reached a climax one night in an old barn on the outskirts of a town. A fight was about to begin when Sandy discovered Ricks judiciously administering a sedative to the enemy's dog. Then understanding dawned upon him, and his rage was elemental. With a valor that lacked the better part of discretion, he hurled himself through the crowd and fell upon Ricks. An hour later, bruised, bloody, and vanquished, he stumbled along through the dreary night. Hot with rage and defeat, utterly ignorant of his whereabouts, his one friend turned foe, he was indeed in sorry plight. He climbed over the fence and lay face downward in the long, cool grass, stretching his bruised and aching body along the ground. A gentle night wind rustled above him, and by and by a star peeped out, then another and another. Before he knew it, he was listening to the frogs and katydids, and wondering what they were talking about. He ceased to think about Ricks and his woes, and gave himself up to the delicious, drowsy peace that was all about him. For, child of nature that he was, he had turned to the only mother he knew. CHAPTER IV SIDE-TRACKED The next morning, at the nearest railroad station, an irate cattleman was trying to hire some one to take charge of a car of live stock which was on its way to a great exposition in a neighboring city. The man he had counted on had not appeared, and the train was about due. As he was turning away in desperation he felt a tug at his elbow. Looking around, he saw a queer figure with a countenance that resembled a first attempt at a charcoal sketch from life: one cheek was larger than the other, the mouth was sadly out of drawing, the eyes shone out from among the bruises like the sun from behind the clouds. But if the features were disfigured, the smile was none the less courageous. Sandy had found a friendly sympathizer at a neighboring farm-house, had been given a good breakfast, had made his toilet, and was ready for the next round in the fight of life. "I'll be doin' yer job, sir, whatever it is," he said pleasantly. The man eyed him with misgiving, but his need was urgent. "All you have to do is to stay in the car and look after the cattle. My man will meet you when you reach the city. Do you think you can do it?" "Just keep company with the cows?" cried Sandy. "Sure and I can!" So the bargain was struck, and that night found him in the great city with a dollar in his pocket and a promise of work in the morning. Tired and sore from the experiences of the night before, he sought a cheap lodging-house near by. A hook-nosed woman, carrying a smoking lamp, conducted him to a room under the eaves. It was small and suffocating. He involuntarily lifted his hands and touched the ceiling. "It's like a boilin' potato I feel," he said; "and the pot's so little and the lid so tight!" He went to the window, and taking out the nail that held down the sash, pushed it up. Below him lay the great, bustling city, cabs and cars in constant motion, long lines of blazing lights marking the thoroughfares, the thunder of trains in the big station, and above and below and through it all a dull monotonous roar, like the faraway unceasing cry of a hungry beast. He sank on his knees by the window, and a restless, nervous look came into his eyes. "It presses in, too," he thought. "It's all crowdin' over me. I'm just me by myself, all alone." A tear made a white course down his grimy cheek, then another and another. He brushed them impatiently away with the cap he still held in his hand. Rising abruptly, he turned away from the window, and the hot air of the room again smote him. The smoking lamp had blackened the chimney, and as he bent to turn it down, he caught his reflection in a small mirror over the table. What the bruises and swelling had left undone the cheap mirror completed. He started back. Was that the boy he knew as himself? Was that Sandy Kilday who had come to America to seek his fortune? He stared in a sort of fascinated horror at that other boy in the mirror. Before he had been afraid to be by himself, now he was afraid of himself. He seized his cap, and blowing out the lamp, plunged down four flights of steep narrow steps and out into the street. A number of people were crowding into a street-car marked "Exposition." Sandy, ever a straw in the current, joined them. Once more down among his fellow-men, he began to feel more comfortable. He cheerfully paid his entrance fee with one of the two silver coins in his pocket. The first building he entered was the art gallery, and the first picture that caught his eye held him spellbound. He sat before it all the evening with fascinated eyes, devouring every detail and oblivious to the curious interest he was attracting; for the huge canvas represented the Knights of the Round Table, and he had at last found friends. All the way back he thought about the picture; it was not until he reached his room that the former loneliness returned. But even then it was not for long. A pair of yellow eyes peered around the window-sill, and a plaintive "meow" begged for admittance. It was plainly Providence that guided that thin and ill-treated kitten to Sandy's window. The welcome it received must have completely restored its shaken faith in human nature. Tired as he was, Sandy went out and bought some milk. He wanted to establish a firm friendship; for if he was to stay in this lonely city, he must have something to love, if only a prodigal kitten of doubtful pedigree. During the long, hot days that followed Sandy worked faithfully at the depot. The regular hours and confinement seemed doubly irksome after the bohemian life on the road. The Exposition was his salvation. No sacrifice seemed too great to enable him to get beyond that magic gate. For the "Knights of the Round Table" was but the beginning of miles and miles of wonderful pictures. He even bought a catalogue, and, prompted by a natural curiosity for anything that interested him, learned the names of the artists he liked best, and the bits of biography attached to each. He would recite these to the yellow kitten when he got back to his little hot-box of a room. One night the art gallery was closed, and he went into another big building where a crowd of people were seated. At one end of it was a great pipe-organ, and after a while some one began to play. With his cap tightly grasped in both hands, he tiptoed down the center aisle and stood breathlessly drinking in the wonderful tones that seemed to be coming from his own heart. "Get out of the way, boy," said an usher. "You are blocking the aisle." A queer-appearing lady who looked like a man touched his elbow. "Here's a seat," she said in a deep voice. "Thank you, sir," said Sandy, absently. He scarcely knew whether he was sitting or standing. He only wanted to be let alone, so that he could listen to those strange, beautiful sounds that made a shiver of joy go down his back. Art had had her day; it was Music's turn. When the last number had been played, he turned to the queer lady: "Do they do it every night?" She smiled at his enthusiasm: "Wednesdays and Saturdays." "Say," said Sandy, confidentially, "if you come first do you save me a seat, and I'll do the same by you." From that time on he decided to be a musician, and he lived on two scanty meals a day in order to attend the concerts. But this exalted scheme of high thinking and plain living soon became irksome. One day, when his loneliness weighed most heavily upon him, he was sent with a message out to the switch-station. As he tramped back along the track he spied a familiar figure ahead of him. There was no mistaking that short, slouching body with the peddler's pack strapped on its back. With a cry of joy, Sandy bounded after Ricks Wilson. He actually hugged him in his joy to be once more with some one he knew. Ricks glanced uneasily at the scar above his eye. Sandy clapped his hand over it and laughed. "It's all right, Ricks; a miss is as good as a mile. I ain't mad any more. It's straight home with me you are goin'; and if we can get the two feet of you into me bit of a room, we'll have a dinner that's fit for a king." On the way they laid in a supply of provisions, Sandy even going to the expense of a bottle of beer for Ricks. The yellow kitten arched her back and showed general signs of hostility when the stranger was introduced. But her unfriendly demonstrations were ignored. Ricks was the honored guest, and Sandy extended to him the full hospitality of the establishment. "Put your pack on the floor and yerself in the chair, and I'll get ye filled up in the blink of an eyelash. Don't be mindin' the cat, Ricks. She's just lettin' on she don't take to you. She give me the wink on the sly." Ricks, expanding under the influence of food and drink, became eloquent. He recounted courageous adventures of the past, and outlined marvelous schemes for the future, by which he was going to make a short cut to fame and glory. When it was time for him to go, Sandy heaved a sigh of regret. For two hours he had been beguiled by Ricks's romances, and now he had to go back to the humdrum duties at the depot, and receive a sound rating for his belated appearance. "Which way might you be goin', Ricks?" he asked wistfully. "Same place I started fer," said Ricks. "Kentucky." The will-o'-the-wisp, which had been hiding his light, suddenly swung it full in the eyes of Sandy. Once more he saw the little maid of his dreams, and once more he threw discretion to the winds and followed the vision. Hastily collecting his few possessions, he rolled them into a bundle, and slipping the surprised kitten into his pocket, he gladly followed Ricks once more out into the broad green meadows, along the white and shining roads that lead over the hills to Kentucky. CHAPTER V SANDY RETIRES FROM BUSINESS "This here is too blame slow fer me," said Ricks, one chilly night in late September, as he and Sandy huddled against a haystack and settled up their weekly accounts. "Fifty-five cents! Now ain't that a' o'nery dab? Here's a quarter fer you and thirty cents fer me; that's as even as you kin split it." "It's the microscopes that'll be sellin'," said Sandy, hopefully, as he pulled his coat collar about his ears and shivered. "The man as sold 'em to me said they was a great bargain entirely. He thought there was money in 'em." "For him," said Ricks, contemptuously. "It's like the man what gulled us on the penknives. I lay to git even with him, all right." "But he give us the night's lodgin' and some breakfast," said Sandy. Ricks took a long drink from a short bottle, then holding it before him, he said impressively: "A feller could do me ninety-nine good turns, and if he done me one bad one it would wipe 'em all out. I got to git even with anybody what does me dirty, if it takes me all my life." "But don't you forget to remember?" "Not me. I ain't that kind." Sandy leaned wearily against the haystack and tried to shelter himself from the wind. A continued diet of bread and water had made him sensitive to the changes in the weather. "This here grub is kinder hard on yer head-rails," said Ricks, trying to bite through a piece of stale bread. A baker had let them have three loaves for a dime because they were old and hard. Sandy cast a longing look at Ricks's short bottle. It seemed to remedy so many ills, heat or cold, thirst or hunger. But the strict principles applied during his tender years made him hesitate. "I wish we hadn't lost the kitten," he said, feeling the need of a more cheerful companion. "I'm a-goin' to git another dawg," announced Ricks. "I'm sick of this here doin's." "Ain't we goin' to be turfmen?" asked Sandy, who had listened by the hour to thrilling accounts of life on the track, and had accepted Ricks's ambition as his own. "Not on twenty cents per week," growled Ricks. Sandy's heart sank; he knew what a new dog meant. He burrowed in the hay and tried to sleep, but there was a queer pain that seemed to catch hold of his breath whenever he breathed down deep. It rained the next day, and they tramped disconsolately through village after village. They had oil-cloth covers for their baskets, but their own backs were soaked to the skin. Toward evening they came to the top of a hill, from which they could look directly down upon a large town lying comfortably in the crook of a river's elbow. The rain had stopped, and the belated sun, struggling through the clouds, made up for lost time by reflecting itself in every curve of the winding stream, in every puddle along the road, and in every pane of glass that faced the west. "That's a nobby hoss," said Ricks, pointing down the hill. "What's the matter with the feller?" A slight, delicate-looking young man was lying in the road, between the horse and the fence. As the boys came up he stirred and tried to rise. "He's off his nut," said Ricks, starting to pass on; but Sandy stopped. "Get a fall?" he asked. The strange boy shook his head. "I guess I fainted. I must have ridden too hard. I'll be all right in a minute." He leaned his head against a tree and closed his eyes. Sandy eyed him curiously, taking in all the details of his riding-costume down to the short whip with the silver mounting. "I say, Ricks," he called to his companion, who was inspecting the horse, "can't we do somethin' for him?" Ricks reluctantly produced the short bottle. "I'm all right," insisted the boy, "if you'll just give me a lift to the saddle." But his eager eyes followed the bottle, and before Ricks had returned it to his pocket he held out his hand. "I believe I will take a drink if you don't mind." He drained the contents and then handed a coin to Ricks. "Now, if you'll help me," continued the stranger. "There! Thank you very much." "Say, what town is this, anyway?" asked Ricks. "Clayton," said the boy, trying to keep his horse from backing. "Looks like somethin' was doin'," said Ricks. "Circus, I believe." "Then I don't blame your nag for wantin' to go back!" cried Sandy. "Come on, Ricks; let's take in the show!" Half-way down the hill he turned. "Haven't we seen that fellow before, Ricks?" "Not as I knows of. He looked kinder pale and shaky, but you bet yer life he knowed how to hit the bottle." "He was sick," urged Sandy. "An' thirsty," added Ricks, with a smile of superior wisdom. The circus seemed such a timely opportunity to do business that they decided to rent a stand that night and sell their wares on the street corner. Ricks went on into town to arrange matters, while Sandy stopped in a grocery to buy their supper. His interest in the show had been of short duration. He felt listless and tired, something seemed to be buzzing continually in his head, and he shivered in his damp clothes. In the grocery he sat on a barrel and leaned his head against the wall. "What you shivering about?" asked the fat woman behind the counter, as she tied up his small package. "I feel like me skeleton was doin' a jig inside of me," said Sandy through chattering teeth. "Looks to me like you got a chill," said the fat woman. "You wait here, and I'll go git you some hot coffee." She disappeared in the rear of the store, and soon returned with a small coffee-pot and a cup and saucer. Sandy drank two cups and a half, then he asked the price. "Price?" repeated the woman, indignantly. "I reckon you don't know which side of the Ohio River you're on!" Sandy made up in gratitude what she declined in cash, and started on his way. At the corner of Main street and the bridge he found Ricks, who had rented a stand and was already arranging his wares. Sandy knelt on the sidewalk and unpacked his basket. "Only three bars of soap and seventy-five microscopes!" he exclaimed ruefully. "Let's be layin' fine stress on the microscopes, Ricks." "You do the jawin', Sandy. I ain't much on givin' 'em the talk," said Ricks. "Chuck a jolly at 'em and keep 'em hangin' round." As dark came on, trade began. The three bars of soap were sold, and a purple necktie. Sandy saw that public taste must be guided in the proper direction. He stepped up on a box and began eloquently to enumerate the diverse uses of microscopes. At each end of the stand a flaring torch lighted up the scene. The light fell on the careless, laughing faces in front, on Ricks Wilson, black-browed and suspicious, in the rear, and it fell full on Sandy, who stood on high and harangued the crowd. It fell on his broad, straight shoulders and on his shining tumbled hair; but it was not the light of the torch that gave the brightness to his eyes and the flush to his cheek. His head was throbbing, but he felt a curious sense of elation. He felt that he could stand there and talk the rest of his life. He made the crowd listen, he made it laugh, he made it buy. He told stories and sang songs, he coaxed and persuaded, until only a few microscopes were left and the old cigar-box was heavy with silver. "Step right up and take a look at a fly's leg! Every one ought to have a microscope in his home. When you get hard up it will make a dime look like a dollar, and a dollar like a five-dollar gold piece. Step right up! I ain't kiddin' you. Five cents for two looks, and fifteen for the microscope." Suddenly he faltered. At the edge of the crowd he had recognized two faces. They were sensitive slender faces, strangely alike in feature and unlike in expression. The young horseman of the afternoon was impatiently pushing his way through the crowd, while close behind him was a dainty girl with brown eyes slightly lifted at the outer corners, who held back in laughing wonder to watch the scene. "Ricks," said Sandy, lowering his voice unsteadily, "is this Kentucky?" "Yep; we crossed the line to-day." "I can't talk no more," said Sandy. "You'll have to be doin' it. I'm sick." It was not only the fever that was burning in his veins, and making him bury his hot head in his hands and wish he had never been born. It was shame and humiliation, and all because of the look on the face of the girl at the edge of the crowd. He sat in the shadow of the big box and fought his fight. The coffee and the excitement no longer kept him up; he was faint, and his breath came short. Above him he heard Ricks's rasping voice still talking to the few customers who were left. He knew, without glancing up, just how Ricks looked when he said the words; he knew how his teeth pushed his lips back, and how his restless little eyes watched everything at once. A sudden fierce repulsion swept over him for peddling, for Ricks, for himself. "And to think," he whispered, with a sob in his throat, "that I can't ever speak to a girl like that!" Ricks, jubilant over the success of the evening, decided to follow the circus, which was to be in the next town on the following day. "It ain't fur," he said. "We kin push on to-night and be ready to open early in the morning." Sandy, miserable in body and spirit, mechanically obeyed instructions. His head was getting queerer all the time, and he could not remember whether it was day or night. About a mile from Clayton he sank down by the road. "Say, Ricks," he said abruptly; "I'm after quittin' peddlin'." "What you goin' to do?" "I'm goin' to school." If Sandy had announced his intention of putting on baby clothes and being wheeled in a perambulator, Ricks could not have been more astonished. "What?" he asked in genuine doubt. "'Cause I want to be the right sort," burst out Sandy, passionately. "This ain't the way you get to be the right sort." Ricks surveyed him contemptuously. "Look-a here, are you comin' along of me or not?" "I can't," said Sandy, weakly. Ricks shifted his pack, and with never a parting word or a backward look he left his business partner of three months lying by the roadside, and tramped away in the darkness. Sandy started up to follow him; he tried to call, but he had no strength. He lay with his face on the road and talked. He knew there was nobody to listen, but still he kept on, softly talking about microscopes and pink soap, crying out again and again that he couldn't ever speak to a girl like that. After a long while somebody came. At first he thought he must have gone back to the land behind the peat-flames, for it was a great black witch who bent over him, and he instinctively felt about in the grass for the tender, soft hand which he used to press against his cheek. He found instead the hand of the witch herself, and he drew back in terror. "Fer de Lawd sake, honey, what's de matter wif you?" asked a kindly voice. Sandy opened his eyes. A tall old negro woman bent over him, her head tied up in a turban, and a shawl about her shoulders. "Did you git runned over?" she asked, peering down at him anxiously. Sandy tried to explain, but it was all the old mixture of soap and microscopes and never being able to speak to her. He knew he was talking at random, but he could not say the things he thought. "Where'd you come from, boy?" "Curragh Chase, Limerick," murmured Sandy. "'Fore de Lawd, he's done been cunjered!" cried the old woman, aghast. "I'll git it outen of you, chile. You jus' come home wif yer Aunt Melvy; she'll take keer of you. Put yer arm on my shoulder; dat's right. Don't you mind where you gwine at. I got yer bundle. It ain't fur. Hit's dat little house a-hangin' on de side of de hill. Dey calls it 'Who'd 'a' Thought It,' 'ca'se you nebber would 'a' thought of puttin' a house dere. Dat's right; lean on yer mammy. I'll git dem old cunjers outen you." Thus encouraged and supported, Sandy stumbled on through the dark, up a hillside that seemed never to end, across a bridge, then into a tiny log cabin, where he dropped exhausted. Off and on during the night he knew that there was a fire in the room, and that strange things were happening to him. But it was all so queer and unnatural that he did not know where the dreams left off and the real began. He was vaguely conscious of his left foot being tied to the right bedpost, of a lock of his hair being cut off and burned on the hearth, and of a low monotonous chant that seemed to rise and fall with the flicker of the flames. And when he cried out with the pain in his sleep, a kindly black face bent over him, and the chant changed into a soothing murmur: "Nebber you min', sonny; Aunt Melvy gwine git dem cunjers out. She gwine stay by you. You hol' on to her han', an' go to sleep; she'll git dem old cunjers out." CHAPTER VI HOLLIS FARM Clayton was an easy-going, prosperous old town which, in the enthusiasm of youth, had started to climb the long hill to the north, but growing indolent with age, | lay | How many times the word 'lay' appears in the text? | 3 |
ventured a step nearer and continued his observations. As he did so, he made a discovery. The soft white of her cheek was gradually becoming pinker and pinker; the color which began under her lace collar stole up and up until it reached her eyes, which still gazed determinedly before her. Sandy admired it as a traveler admires a sunrise, and with as little idea of having caused it. The line of passengers moved slowly forward, and his heart sank. Suddenly his eyes fell upon the little hand-bag which she carried. On one end, in small white letters, was: "Ruth Nelson, Kentucky, U.S.A." He watched her until she was lost to view, then he turned eagerly back into the crowd. Elbowing his way forward, he seized Ricks by the arm. "Hi, there!" he cried; "I've changed me mind. I'm goin' with you to Kentucky!" So this impetuous knight errant enlisted under the will-o'-the-wisp love, and started joyously forth upon his quest. CHAPTER III THE CURSE OF WEALTH It is an oft-proved adage that for ten who can stand adversity there is but one who can stand prosperity. Sandy, alas! was no exception to any rule which went to prove the frailty of human nature. The sudden acquisition of ten dollars cast him into a whirlpool of temptation from which he made little effort to escape. "I ain't goin' on to-day," announced Ricks. "I'm goin' to lay in my goods for peddlin'. I reckon you kin come along of me." Sandy accepted a long and strong cigar, tilted his hat, and unconsciously caught Ricks's slouching gait as they went down the street. After all, it was rather pleasant to associate with sophistication. "We'll git on the outside of a little dinner," said Ricks; "and I'll mosey round in the stores awhile, then I'll take you to a show or two. It's a mighty good thing for you that you got me along." Sandy thought so too. He cheerfully stood treat for the rest of the day, and felt that it was small return for Ricks's condescension. "How much you got left?" asked Ricks, that night, as they stopped under a street light to take stock. Sandy held out a couple of dollars and a fifty-cent piece. "Enough to put on the eyes of two and a half dead men," he said as he curiously eyed the strange money. "One, two,--two and a half," counted Ricks. "Shillings?" asked Sandy, amazed. Ricks nodded. "And have I blowed all that to-day?" "What of it?" asked Ricks. "I seen a bloke onct what lit his cigar with a bill like the one you had!" "But the doctor said it was two pounds," insisted Sandy, incredulously. He did not realize the expense of a personally conducted tour of the Bowery. "Well, it's went," said Ricks, resignedly. "You can't count on settin' up biz with what's left." Sandy's brows clouded, and he shifted his position restlessly. "Now I ax yerself, Ricks, what'u'd you do?" he said. "Me? I don't give advice to nobody. But effen it was me I'd know mighty quick what to do." "What?" said Sandy, eagerly. "Buy a dawg." "A dog? I ain't goin' blind." "Lor'! but you're a softhorn," said Ricks, contemptuously. "I s'pose you'd count on leadin' him round by a pink ribbon." "Oh, you mean a fighter?" "Sure. My last dawg could do ever'thing in sight. She was so game she went after herself in a lookin'-glass and got kilt. Oh, they's money in dawgs, and I knows how to make 'em win ever' time." Sandy, tired as he was from the day's excitement, insisted upon going in search of one at once. He already had visions of becoming the proud owner of a canine champion that would put him immediately into the position of lighting his cigar with a two-pound note. The first three weeks of their experience on the road went far to realize their expectations. The bulldog, which had been bought in partnership, proved a conquering hero. Through the long summer days the boys tramped over the country, peddling their wares, and by night they conducted sundry unlawful encounters wherever an opponent could be found. Sandy enjoyed the peddling. It was astonishing what friendly sociability and confidential intimacy were established by the sale of blue suspenders and pink soap. He left a line of smiling testimonials in his wake. But if the days were proving satisfactory, so much could not be said of the nights. Even the phenomenal luck that followed his dog failed to keep up his enthusiasm. "You ain't a nachrul sport," complained Ricks. "That's your trouble. When the last fight was on, you set on the fence and listened at a' ole idiot scrapin' a fiddle down in the valley." Sandy made a feeble defense, but he knew in his soul it was so. Affairs reached a climax one night in an old barn on the outskirts of a town. A fight was about to begin when Sandy discovered Ricks judiciously administering a sedative to the enemy's dog. Then understanding dawned upon him, and his rage was elemental. With a valor that lacked the better part of discretion, he hurled himself through the crowd and fell upon Ricks. An hour later, bruised, bloody, and vanquished, he stumbled along through the dreary night. Hot with rage and defeat, utterly ignorant of his whereabouts, his one friend turned foe, he was indeed in sorry plight. He climbed over the fence and lay face downward in the long, cool grass, stretching his bruised and aching body along the ground. A gentle night wind rustled above him, and by and by a star peeped out, then another and another. Before he knew it, he was listening to the frogs and katydids, and wondering what they were talking about. He ceased to think about Ricks and his woes, and gave himself up to the delicious, drowsy peace that was all about him. For, child of nature that he was, he had turned to the only mother he knew. CHAPTER IV SIDE-TRACKED The next morning, at the nearest railroad station, an irate cattleman was trying to hire some one to take charge of a car of live stock which was on its way to a great exposition in a neighboring city. The man he had counted on had not appeared, and the train was about due. As he was turning away in desperation he felt a tug at his elbow. Looking around, he saw a queer figure with a countenance that resembled a first attempt at a charcoal sketch from life: one cheek was larger than the other, the mouth was sadly out of drawing, the eyes shone out from among the bruises like the sun from behind the clouds. But if the features were disfigured, the smile was none the less courageous. Sandy had found a friendly sympathizer at a neighboring farm-house, had been given a good breakfast, had made his toilet, and was ready for the next round in the fight of life. "I'll be doin' yer job, sir, whatever it is," he said pleasantly. The man eyed him with misgiving, but his need was urgent. "All you have to do is to stay in the car and look after the cattle. My man will meet you when you reach the city. Do you think you can do it?" "Just keep company with the cows?" cried Sandy. "Sure and I can!" So the bargain was struck, and that night found him in the great city with a dollar in his pocket and a promise of work in the morning. Tired and sore from the experiences of the night before, he sought a cheap lodging-house near by. A hook-nosed woman, carrying a smoking lamp, conducted him to a room under the eaves. It was small and suffocating. He involuntarily lifted his hands and touched the ceiling. "It's like a boilin' potato I feel," he said; "and the pot's so little and the lid so tight!" He went to the window, and taking out the nail that held down the sash, pushed it up. Below him lay the great, bustling city, cabs and cars in constant motion, long lines of blazing lights marking the thoroughfares, the thunder of trains in the big station, and above and below and through it all a dull monotonous roar, like the faraway unceasing cry of a hungry beast. He sank on his knees by the window, and a restless, nervous look came into his eyes. "It presses in, too," he thought. "It's all crowdin' over me. I'm just me by myself, all alone." A tear made a white course down his grimy cheek, then another and another. He brushed them impatiently away with the cap he still held in his hand. Rising abruptly, he turned away from the window, and the hot air of the room again smote him. The smoking lamp had blackened the chimney, and as he bent to turn it down, he caught his reflection in a small mirror over the table. What the bruises and swelling had left undone the cheap mirror completed. He started back. Was that the boy he knew as himself? Was that Sandy Kilday who had come to America to seek his fortune? He stared in a sort of fascinated horror at that other boy in the mirror. Before he had been afraid to be by himself, now he was afraid of himself. He seized his cap, and blowing out the lamp, plunged down four flights of steep narrow steps and out into the street. A number of people were crowding into a street-car marked "Exposition." Sandy, ever a straw in the current, joined them. Once more down among his fellow-men, he began to feel more comfortable. He cheerfully paid his entrance fee with one of the two silver coins in his pocket. The first building he entered was the art gallery, and the first picture that caught his eye held him spellbound. He sat before it all the evening with fascinated eyes, devouring every detail and oblivious to the curious interest he was attracting; for the huge canvas represented the Knights of the Round Table, and he had at last found friends. All the way back he thought about the picture; it was not until he reached his room that the former loneliness returned. But even then it was not for long. A pair of yellow eyes peered around the window-sill, and a plaintive "meow" begged for admittance. It was plainly Providence that guided that thin and ill-treated kitten to Sandy's window. The welcome it received must have completely restored its shaken faith in human nature. Tired as he was, Sandy went out and bought some milk. He wanted to establish a firm friendship; for if he was to stay in this lonely city, he must have something to love, if only a prodigal kitten of doubtful pedigree. During the long, hot days that followed Sandy worked faithfully at the depot. The regular hours and confinement seemed doubly irksome after the bohemian life on the road. The Exposition was his salvation. No sacrifice seemed too great to enable him to get beyond that magic gate. For the "Knights of the Round Table" was but the beginning of miles and miles of wonderful pictures. He even bought a catalogue, and, prompted by a natural curiosity for anything that interested him, learned the names of the artists he liked best, and the bits of biography attached to each. He would recite these to the yellow kitten when he got back to his little hot-box of a room. One night the art gallery was closed, and he went into another big building where a crowd of people were seated. At one end of it was a great pipe-organ, and after a while some one began to play. With his cap tightly grasped in both hands, he tiptoed down the center aisle and stood breathlessly drinking in the wonderful tones that seemed to be coming from his own heart. "Get out of the way, boy," said an usher. "You are blocking the aisle." A queer-appearing lady who looked like a man touched his elbow. "Here's a seat," she said in a deep voice. "Thank you, sir," said Sandy, absently. He scarcely knew whether he was sitting or standing. He only wanted to be let alone, so that he could listen to those strange, beautiful sounds that made a shiver of joy go down his back. Art had had her day; it was Music's turn. When the last number had been played, he turned to the queer lady: "Do they do it every night?" She smiled at his enthusiasm: "Wednesdays and Saturdays." "Say," said Sandy, confidentially, "if you come first do you save me a seat, and I'll do the same by you." From that time on he decided to be a musician, and he lived on two scanty meals a day in order to attend the concerts. But this exalted scheme of high thinking and plain living soon became irksome. One day, when his loneliness weighed most heavily upon him, he was sent with a message out to the switch-station. As he tramped back along the track he spied a familiar figure ahead of him. There was no mistaking that short, slouching body with the peddler's pack strapped on its back. With a cry of joy, Sandy bounded after Ricks Wilson. He actually hugged him in his joy to be once more with some one he knew. Ricks glanced uneasily at the scar above his eye. Sandy clapped his hand over it and laughed. "It's all right, Ricks; a miss is as good as a mile. I ain't mad any more. It's straight home with me you are goin'; and if we can get the two feet of you into me bit of a room, we'll have a dinner that's fit for a king." On the way they laid in a supply of provisions, Sandy even going to the expense of a bottle of beer for Ricks. The yellow kitten arched her back and showed general signs of hostility when the stranger was introduced. But her unfriendly demonstrations were ignored. Ricks was the honored guest, and Sandy extended to him the full hospitality of the establishment. "Put your pack on the floor and yerself in the chair, and I'll get ye filled up in the blink of an eyelash. Don't be mindin' the cat, Ricks. She's just lettin' on she don't take to you. She give me the wink on the sly." Ricks, expanding under the influence of food and drink, became eloquent. He recounted courageous adventures of the past, and outlined marvelous schemes for the future, by which he was going to make a short cut to fame and glory. When it was time for him to go, Sandy heaved a sigh of regret. For two hours he had been beguiled by Ricks's romances, and now he had to go back to the humdrum duties at the depot, and receive a sound rating for his belated appearance. "Which way might you be goin', Ricks?" he asked wistfully. "Same place I started fer," said Ricks. "Kentucky." The will-o'-the-wisp, which had been hiding his light, suddenly swung it full in the eyes of Sandy. Once more he saw the little maid of his dreams, and once more he threw discretion to the winds and followed the vision. Hastily collecting his few possessions, he rolled them into a bundle, and slipping the surprised kitten into his pocket, he gladly followed Ricks once more out into the broad green meadows, along the white and shining roads that lead over the hills to Kentucky. CHAPTER V SANDY RETIRES FROM BUSINESS "This here is too blame slow fer me," said Ricks, one chilly night in late September, as he and Sandy huddled against a haystack and settled up their weekly accounts. "Fifty-five cents! Now ain't that a' o'nery dab? Here's a quarter fer you and thirty cents fer me; that's as even as you kin split it." "It's the microscopes that'll be sellin'," said Sandy, hopefully, as he pulled his coat collar about his ears and shivered. "The man as sold 'em to me said they was a great bargain entirely. He thought there was money in 'em." "For him," said Ricks, contemptuously. "It's like the man what gulled us on the penknives. I lay to git even with him, all right." "But he give us the night's lodgin' and some breakfast," said Sandy. Ricks took a long drink from a short bottle, then holding it before him, he said impressively: "A feller could do me ninety-nine good turns, and if he done me one bad one it would wipe 'em all out. I got to git even with anybody what does me dirty, if it takes me all my life." "But don't you forget to remember?" "Not me. I ain't that kind." Sandy leaned wearily against the haystack and tried to shelter himself from the wind. A continued diet of bread and water had made him sensitive to the changes in the weather. "This here grub is kinder hard on yer head-rails," said Ricks, trying to bite through a piece of stale bread. A baker had let them have three loaves for a dime because they were old and hard. Sandy cast a longing look at Ricks's short bottle. It seemed to remedy so many ills, heat or cold, thirst or hunger. But the strict principles applied during his tender years made him hesitate. "I wish we hadn't lost the kitten," he said, feeling the need of a more cheerful companion. "I'm a-goin' to git another dawg," announced Ricks. "I'm sick of this here doin's." "Ain't we goin' to be turfmen?" asked Sandy, who had listened by the hour to thrilling accounts of life on the track, and had accepted Ricks's ambition as his own. "Not on twenty cents per week," growled Ricks. Sandy's heart sank; he knew what a new dog meant. He burrowed in the hay and tried to sleep, but there was a queer pain that seemed to catch hold of his breath whenever he breathed down deep. It rained the next day, and they tramped disconsolately through village after village. They had oil-cloth covers for their baskets, but their own backs were soaked to the skin. Toward evening they came to the top of a hill, from which they could look directly down upon a large town lying comfortably in the crook of a river's elbow. The rain had stopped, and the belated sun, struggling through the clouds, made up for lost time by reflecting itself in every curve of the winding stream, in every puddle along the road, and in every pane of glass that faced the west. "That's a nobby hoss," said Ricks, pointing down the hill. "What's the matter with the feller?" A slight, delicate-looking young man was lying in the road, between the horse and the fence. As the boys came up he stirred and tried to rise. "He's off his nut," said Ricks, starting to pass on; but Sandy stopped. "Get a fall?" he asked. The strange boy shook his head. "I guess I fainted. I must have ridden too hard. I'll be all right in a minute." He leaned his head against a tree and closed his eyes. Sandy eyed him curiously, taking in all the details of his riding-costume down to the short whip with the silver mounting. "I say, Ricks," he called to his companion, who was inspecting the horse, "can't we do somethin' for him?" Ricks reluctantly produced the short bottle. "I'm all right," insisted the boy, "if you'll just give me a lift to the saddle." But his eager eyes followed the bottle, and before Ricks had returned it to his pocket he held out his hand. "I believe I will take a drink if you don't mind." He drained the contents and then handed a coin to Ricks. "Now, if you'll help me," continued the stranger. "There! Thank you very much." "Say, what town is this, anyway?" asked Ricks. "Clayton," said the boy, trying to keep his horse from backing. "Looks like somethin' was doin'," said Ricks. "Circus, I believe." "Then I don't blame your nag for wantin' to go back!" cried Sandy. "Come on, Ricks; let's take in the show!" Half-way down the hill he turned. "Haven't we seen that fellow before, Ricks?" "Not as I knows of. He looked kinder pale and shaky, but you bet yer life he knowed how to hit the bottle." "He was sick," urged Sandy. "An' thirsty," added Ricks, with a smile of superior wisdom. The circus seemed such a timely opportunity to do business that they decided to rent a stand that night and sell their wares on the street corner. Ricks went on into town to arrange matters, while Sandy stopped in a grocery to buy their supper. His interest in the show had been of short duration. He felt listless and tired, something seemed to be buzzing continually in his head, and he shivered in his damp clothes. In the grocery he sat on a barrel and leaned his head against the wall. "What you shivering about?" asked the fat woman behind the counter, as she tied up his small package. "I feel like me skeleton was doin' a jig inside of me," said Sandy through chattering teeth. "Looks to me like you got a chill," said the fat woman. "You wait here, and I'll go git you some hot coffee." She disappeared in the rear of the store, and soon returned with a small coffee-pot and a cup and saucer. Sandy drank two cups and a half, then he asked the price. "Price?" repeated the woman, indignantly. "I reckon you don't know which side of the Ohio River you're on!" Sandy made up in gratitude what she declined in cash, and started on his way. At the corner of Main street and the bridge he found Ricks, who had rented a stand and was already arranging his wares. Sandy knelt on the sidewalk and unpacked his basket. "Only three bars of soap and seventy-five microscopes!" he exclaimed ruefully. "Let's be layin' fine stress on the microscopes, Ricks." "You do the jawin', Sandy. I ain't much on givin' 'em the talk," said Ricks. "Chuck a jolly at 'em and keep 'em hangin' round." As dark came on, trade began. The three bars of soap were sold, and a purple necktie. Sandy saw that public taste must be guided in the proper direction. He stepped up on a box and began eloquently to enumerate the diverse uses of microscopes. At each end of the stand a flaring torch lighted up the scene. The light fell on the careless, laughing faces in front, on Ricks Wilson, black-browed and suspicious, in the rear, and it fell full on Sandy, who stood on high and harangued the crowd. It fell on his broad, straight shoulders and on his shining tumbled hair; but it was not the light of the torch that gave the brightness to his eyes and the flush to his cheek. His head was throbbing, but he felt a curious sense of elation. He felt that he could stand there and talk the rest of his life. He made the crowd listen, he made it laugh, he made it buy. He told stories and sang songs, he coaxed and persuaded, until only a few microscopes were left and the old cigar-box was heavy with silver. "Step right up and take a look at a fly's leg! Every one ought to have a microscope in his home. When you get hard up it will make a dime look like a dollar, and a dollar like a five-dollar gold piece. Step right up! I ain't kiddin' you. Five cents for two looks, and fifteen for the microscope." Suddenly he faltered. At the edge of the crowd he had recognized two faces. They were sensitive slender faces, strangely alike in feature and unlike in expression. The young horseman of the afternoon was impatiently pushing his way through the crowd, while close behind him was a dainty girl with brown eyes slightly lifted at the outer corners, who held back in laughing wonder to watch the scene. "Ricks," said Sandy, lowering his voice unsteadily, "is this Kentucky?" "Yep; we crossed the line to-day." "I can't talk no more," said Sandy. "You'll have to be doin' it. I'm sick." It was not only the fever that was burning in his veins, and making him bury his hot head in his hands and wish he had never been born. It was shame and humiliation, and all because of the look on the face of the girl at the edge of the crowd. He sat in the shadow of the big box and fought his fight. The coffee and the excitement no longer kept him up; he was faint, and his breath came short. Above him he heard Ricks's rasping voice still talking to the few customers who were left. He knew, without glancing up, just how Ricks looked when he said the words; he knew how his teeth pushed his lips back, and how his restless little eyes watched everything at once. A sudden fierce repulsion swept over him for peddling, for Ricks, for himself. "And to think," he whispered, with a sob in his throat, "that I can't ever speak to a girl like that!" Ricks, jubilant over the success of the evening, decided to follow the circus, which was to be in the next town on the following day. "It ain't fur," he said. "We kin push on to-night and be ready to open early in the morning." Sandy, miserable in body and spirit, mechanically obeyed instructions. His head was getting queerer all the time, and he could not remember whether it was day or night. About a mile from Clayton he sank down by the road. "Say, Ricks," he said abruptly; "I'm after quittin' peddlin'." "What you goin' to do?" "I'm goin' to school." If Sandy had announced his intention of putting on baby clothes and being wheeled in a perambulator, Ricks could not have been more astonished. "What?" he asked in genuine doubt. "'Cause I want to be the right sort," burst out Sandy, passionately. "This ain't the way you get to be the right sort." Ricks surveyed him contemptuously. "Look-a here, are you comin' along of me or not?" "I can't," said Sandy, weakly. Ricks shifted his pack, and with never a parting word or a backward look he left his business partner of three months lying by the roadside, and tramped away in the darkness. Sandy started up to follow him; he tried to call, but he had no strength. He lay with his face on the road and talked. He knew there was nobody to listen, but still he kept on, softly talking about microscopes and pink soap, crying out again and again that he couldn't ever speak to a girl like that. After a long while somebody came. At first he thought he must have gone back to the land behind the peat-flames, for it was a great black witch who bent over him, and he instinctively felt about in the grass for the tender, soft hand which he used to press against his cheek. He found instead the hand of the witch herself, and he drew back in terror. "Fer de Lawd sake, honey, what's de matter wif you?" asked a kindly voice. Sandy opened his eyes. A tall old negro woman bent over him, her head tied up in a turban, and a shawl about her shoulders. "Did you git runned over?" she asked, peering down at him anxiously. Sandy tried to explain, but it was all the old mixture of soap and microscopes and never being able to speak to her. He knew he was talking at random, but he could not say the things he thought. "Where'd you come from, boy?" "Curragh Chase, Limerick," murmured Sandy. "'Fore de Lawd, he's done been cunjered!" cried the old woman, aghast. "I'll git it outen of you, chile. You jus' come home wif yer Aunt Melvy; she'll take keer of you. Put yer arm on my shoulder; dat's right. Don't you mind where you gwine at. I got yer bundle. It ain't fur. Hit's dat little house a-hangin' on de side of de hill. Dey calls it 'Who'd 'a' Thought It,' 'ca'se you nebber would 'a' thought of puttin' a house dere. Dat's right; lean on yer mammy. I'll git dem old cunjers outen you." Thus encouraged and supported, Sandy stumbled on through the dark, up a hillside that seemed never to end, across a bridge, then into a tiny log cabin, where he dropped exhausted. Off and on during the night he knew that there was a fire in the room, and that strange things were happening to him. But it was all so queer and unnatural that he did not know where the dreams left off and the real began. He was vaguely conscious of his left foot being tied to the right bedpost, of a lock of his hair being cut off and burned on the hearth, and of a low monotonous chant that seemed to rise and fall with the flicker of the flames. And when he cried out with the pain in his sleep, a kindly black face bent over him, and the chant changed into a soothing murmur: "Nebber you min', sonny; Aunt Melvy gwine git dem cunjers out. She gwine stay by you. You hol' on to her han', an' go to sleep; she'll git dem old cunjers out." CHAPTER VI HOLLIS FARM Clayton was an easy-going, prosperous old town which, in the enthusiasm of youth, had started to climb the long hill to the north, but growing indolent with age, | flights | How many times the word 'flights' appears in the text? | 1 |
ventured a step nearer and continued his observations. As he did so, he made a discovery. The soft white of her cheek was gradually becoming pinker and pinker; the color which began under her lace collar stole up and up until it reached her eyes, which still gazed determinedly before her. Sandy admired it as a traveler admires a sunrise, and with as little idea of having caused it. The line of passengers moved slowly forward, and his heart sank. Suddenly his eyes fell upon the little hand-bag which she carried. On one end, in small white letters, was: "Ruth Nelson, Kentucky, U.S.A." He watched her until she was lost to view, then he turned eagerly back into the crowd. Elbowing his way forward, he seized Ricks by the arm. "Hi, there!" he cried; "I've changed me mind. I'm goin' with you to Kentucky!" So this impetuous knight errant enlisted under the will-o'-the-wisp love, and started joyously forth upon his quest. CHAPTER III THE CURSE OF WEALTH It is an oft-proved adage that for ten who can stand adversity there is but one who can stand prosperity. Sandy, alas! was no exception to any rule which went to prove the frailty of human nature. The sudden acquisition of ten dollars cast him into a whirlpool of temptation from which he made little effort to escape. "I ain't goin' on to-day," announced Ricks. "I'm goin' to lay in my goods for peddlin'. I reckon you kin come along of me." Sandy accepted a long and strong cigar, tilted his hat, and unconsciously caught Ricks's slouching gait as they went down the street. After all, it was rather pleasant to associate with sophistication. "We'll git on the outside of a little dinner," said Ricks; "and I'll mosey round in the stores awhile, then I'll take you to a show or two. It's a mighty good thing for you that you got me along." Sandy thought so too. He cheerfully stood treat for the rest of the day, and felt that it was small return for Ricks's condescension. "How much you got left?" asked Ricks, that night, as they stopped under a street light to take stock. Sandy held out a couple of dollars and a fifty-cent piece. "Enough to put on the eyes of two and a half dead men," he said as he curiously eyed the strange money. "One, two,--two and a half," counted Ricks. "Shillings?" asked Sandy, amazed. Ricks nodded. "And have I blowed all that to-day?" "What of it?" asked Ricks. "I seen a bloke onct what lit his cigar with a bill like the one you had!" "But the doctor said it was two pounds," insisted Sandy, incredulously. He did not realize the expense of a personally conducted tour of the Bowery. "Well, it's went," said Ricks, resignedly. "You can't count on settin' up biz with what's left." Sandy's brows clouded, and he shifted his position restlessly. "Now I ax yerself, Ricks, what'u'd you do?" he said. "Me? I don't give advice to nobody. But effen it was me I'd know mighty quick what to do." "What?" said Sandy, eagerly. "Buy a dawg." "A dog? I ain't goin' blind." "Lor'! but you're a softhorn," said Ricks, contemptuously. "I s'pose you'd count on leadin' him round by a pink ribbon." "Oh, you mean a fighter?" "Sure. My last dawg could do ever'thing in sight. She was so game she went after herself in a lookin'-glass and got kilt. Oh, they's money in dawgs, and I knows how to make 'em win ever' time." Sandy, tired as he was from the day's excitement, insisted upon going in search of one at once. He already had visions of becoming the proud owner of a canine champion that would put him immediately into the position of lighting his cigar with a two-pound note. The first three weeks of their experience on the road went far to realize their expectations. The bulldog, which had been bought in partnership, proved a conquering hero. Through the long summer days the boys tramped over the country, peddling their wares, and by night they conducted sundry unlawful encounters wherever an opponent could be found. Sandy enjoyed the peddling. It was astonishing what friendly sociability and confidential intimacy were established by the sale of blue suspenders and pink soap. He left a line of smiling testimonials in his wake. But if the days were proving satisfactory, so much could not be said of the nights. Even the phenomenal luck that followed his dog failed to keep up his enthusiasm. "You ain't a nachrul sport," complained Ricks. "That's your trouble. When the last fight was on, you set on the fence and listened at a' ole idiot scrapin' a fiddle down in the valley." Sandy made a feeble defense, but he knew in his soul it was so. Affairs reached a climax one night in an old barn on the outskirts of a town. A fight was about to begin when Sandy discovered Ricks judiciously administering a sedative to the enemy's dog. Then understanding dawned upon him, and his rage was elemental. With a valor that lacked the better part of discretion, he hurled himself through the crowd and fell upon Ricks. An hour later, bruised, bloody, and vanquished, he stumbled along through the dreary night. Hot with rage and defeat, utterly ignorant of his whereabouts, his one friend turned foe, he was indeed in sorry plight. He climbed over the fence and lay face downward in the long, cool grass, stretching his bruised and aching body along the ground. A gentle night wind rustled above him, and by and by a star peeped out, then another and another. Before he knew it, he was listening to the frogs and katydids, and wondering what they were talking about. He ceased to think about Ricks and his woes, and gave himself up to the delicious, drowsy peace that was all about him. For, child of nature that he was, he had turned to the only mother he knew. CHAPTER IV SIDE-TRACKED The next morning, at the nearest railroad station, an irate cattleman was trying to hire some one to take charge of a car of live stock which was on its way to a great exposition in a neighboring city. The man he had counted on had not appeared, and the train was about due. As he was turning away in desperation he felt a tug at his elbow. Looking around, he saw a queer figure with a countenance that resembled a first attempt at a charcoal sketch from life: one cheek was larger than the other, the mouth was sadly out of drawing, the eyes shone out from among the bruises like the sun from behind the clouds. But if the features were disfigured, the smile was none the less courageous. Sandy had found a friendly sympathizer at a neighboring farm-house, had been given a good breakfast, had made his toilet, and was ready for the next round in the fight of life. "I'll be doin' yer job, sir, whatever it is," he said pleasantly. The man eyed him with misgiving, but his need was urgent. "All you have to do is to stay in the car and look after the cattle. My man will meet you when you reach the city. Do you think you can do it?" "Just keep company with the cows?" cried Sandy. "Sure and I can!" So the bargain was struck, and that night found him in the great city with a dollar in his pocket and a promise of work in the morning. Tired and sore from the experiences of the night before, he sought a cheap lodging-house near by. A hook-nosed woman, carrying a smoking lamp, conducted him to a room under the eaves. It was small and suffocating. He involuntarily lifted his hands and touched the ceiling. "It's like a boilin' potato I feel," he said; "and the pot's so little and the lid so tight!" He went to the window, and taking out the nail that held down the sash, pushed it up. Below him lay the great, bustling city, cabs and cars in constant motion, long lines of blazing lights marking the thoroughfares, the thunder of trains in the big station, and above and below and through it all a dull monotonous roar, like the faraway unceasing cry of a hungry beast. He sank on his knees by the window, and a restless, nervous look came into his eyes. "It presses in, too," he thought. "It's all crowdin' over me. I'm just me by myself, all alone." A tear made a white course down his grimy cheek, then another and another. He brushed them impatiently away with the cap he still held in his hand. Rising abruptly, he turned away from the window, and the hot air of the room again smote him. The smoking lamp had blackened the chimney, and as he bent to turn it down, he caught his reflection in a small mirror over the table. What the bruises and swelling had left undone the cheap mirror completed. He started back. Was that the boy he knew as himself? Was that Sandy Kilday who had come to America to seek his fortune? He stared in a sort of fascinated horror at that other boy in the mirror. Before he had been afraid to be by himself, now he was afraid of himself. He seized his cap, and blowing out the lamp, plunged down four flights of steep narrow steps and out into the street. A number of people were crowding into a street-car marked "Exposition." Sandy, ever a straw in the current, joined them. Once more down among his fellow-men, he began to feel more comfortable. He cheerfully paid his entrance fee with one of the two silver coins in his pocket. The first building he entered was the art gallery, and the first picture that caught his eye held him spellbound. He sat before it all the evening with fascinated eyes, devouring every detail and oblivious to the curious interest he was attracting; for the huge canvas represented the Knights of the Round Table, and he had at last found friends. All the way back he thought about the picture; it was not until he reached his room that the former loneliness returned. But even then it was not for long. A pair of yellow eyes peered around the window-sill, and a plaintive "meow" begged for admittance. It was plainly Providence that guided that thin and ill-treated kitten to Sandy's window. The welcome it received must have completely restored its shaken faith in human nature. Tired as he was, Sandy went out and bought some milk. He wanted to establish a firm friendship; for if he was to stay in this lonely city, he must have something to love, if only a prodigal kitten of doubtful pedigree. During the long, hot days that followed Sandy worked faithfully at the depot. The regular hours and confinement seemed doubly irksome after the bohemian life on the road. The Exposition was his salvation. No sacrifice seemed too great to enable him to get beyond that magic gate. For the "Knights of the Round Table" was but the beginning of miles and miles of wonderful pictures. He even bought a catalogue, and, prompted by a natural curiosity for anything that interested him, learned the names of the artists he liked best, and the bits of biography attached to each. He would recite these to the yellow kitten when he got back to his little hot-box of a room. One night the art gallery was closed, and he went into another big building where a crowd of people were seated. At one end of it was a great pipe-organ, and after a while some one began to play. With his cap tightly grasped in both hands, he tiptoed down the center aisle and stood breathlessly drinking in the wonderful tones that seemed to be coming from his own heart. "Get out of the way, boy," said an usher. "You are blocking the aisle." A queer-appearing lady who looked like a man touched his elbow. "Here's a seat," she said in a deep voice. "Thank you, sir," said Sandy, absently. He scarcely knew whether he was sitting or standing. He only wanted to be let alone, so that he could listen to those strange, beautiful sounds that made a shiver of joy go down his back. Art had had her day; it was Music's turn. When the last number had been played, he turned to the queer lady: "Do they do it every night?" She smiled at his enthusiasm: "Wednesdays and Saturdays." "Say," said Sandy, confidentially, "if you come first do you save me a seat, and I'll do the same by you." From that time on he decided to be a musician, and he lived on two scanty meals a day in order to attend the concerts. But this exalted scheme of high thinking and plain living soon became irksome. One day, when his loneliness weighed most heavily upon him, he was sent with a message out to the switch-station. As he tramped back along the track he spied a familiar figure ahead of him. There was no mistaking that short, slouching body with the peddler's pack strapped on its back. With a cry of joy, Sandy bounded after Ricks Wilson. He actually hugged him in his joy to be once more with some one he knew. Ricks glanced uneasily at the scar above his eye. Sandy clapped his hand over it and laughed. "It's all right, Ricks; a miss is as good as a mile. I ain't mad any more. It's straight home with me you are goin'; and if we can get the two feet of you into me bit of a room, we'll have a dinner that's fit for a king." On the way they laid in a supply of provisions, Sandy even going to the expense of a bottle of beer for Ricks. The yellow kitten arched her back and showed general signs of hostility when the stranger was introduced. But her unfriendly demonstrations were ignored. Ricks was the honored guest, and Sandy extended to him the full hospitality of the establishment. "Put your pack on the floor and yerself in the chair, and I'll get ye filled up in the blink of an eyelash. Don't be mindin' the cat, Ricks. She's just lettin' on she don't take to you. She give me the wink on the sly." Ricks, expanding under the influence of food and drink, became eloquent. He recounted courageous adventures of the past, and outlined marvelous schemes for the future, by which he was going to make a short cut to fame and glory. When it was time for him to go, Sandy heaved a sigh of regret. For two hours he had been beguiled by Ricks's romances, and now he had to go back to the humdrum duties at the depot, and receive a sound rating for his belated appearance. "Which way might you be goin', Ricks?" he asked wistfully. "Same place I started fer," said Ricks. "Kentucky." The will-o'-the-wisp, which had been hiding his light, suddenly swung it full in the eyes of Sandy. Once more he saw the little maid of his dreams, and once more he threw discretion to the winds and followed the vision. Hastily collecting his few possessions, he rolled them into a bundle, and slipping the surprised kitten into his pocket, he gladly followed Ricks once more out into the broad green meadows, along the white and shining roads that lead over the hills to Kentucky. CHAPTER V SANDY RETIRES FROM BUSINESS "This here is too blame slow fer me," said Ricks, one chilly night in late September, as he and Sandy huddled against a haystack and settled up their weekly accounts. "Fifty-five cents! Now ain't that a' o'nery dab? Here's a quarter fer you and thirty cents fer me; that's as even as you kin split it." "It's the microscopes that'll be sellin'," said Sandy, hopefully, as he pulled his coat collar about his ears and shivered. "The man as sold 'em to me said they was a great bargain entirely. He thought there was money in 'em." "For him," said Ricks, contemptuously. "It's like the man what gulled us on the penknives. I lay to git even with him, all right." "But he give us the night's lodgin' and some breakfast," said Sandy. Ricks took a long drink from a short bottle, then holding it before him, he said impressively: "A feller could do me ninety-nine good turns, and if he done me one bad one it would wipe 'em all out. I got to git even with anybody what does me dirty, if it takes me all my life." "But don't you forget to remember?" "Not me. I ain't that kind." Sandy leaned wearily against the haystack and tried to shelter himself from the wind. A continued diet of bread and water had made him sensitive to the changes in the weather. "This here grub is kinder hard on yer head-rails," said Ricks, trying to bite through a piece of stale bread. A baker had let them have three loaves for a dime because they were old and hard. Sandy cast a longing look at Ricks's short bottle. It seemed to remedy so many ills, heat or cold, thirst or hunger. But the strict principles applied during his tender years made him hesitate. "I wish we hadn't lost the kitten," he said, feeling the need of a more cheerful companion. "I'm a-goin' to git another dawg," announced Ricks. "I'm sick of this here doin's." "Ain't we goin' to be turfmen?" asked Sandy, who had listened by the hour to thrilling accounts of life on the track, and had accepted Ricks's ambition as his own. "Not on twenty cents per week," growled Ricks. Sandy's heart sank; he knew what a new dog meant. He burrowed in the hay and tried to sleep, but there was a queer pain that seemed to catch hold of his breath whenever he breathed down deep. It rained the next day, and they tramped disconsolately through village after village. They had oil-cloth covers for their baskets, but their own backs were soaked to the skin. Toward evening they came to the top of a hill, from which they could look directly down upon a large town lying comfortably in the crook of a river's elbow. The rain had stopped, and the belated sun, struggling through the clouds, made up for lost time by reflecting itself in every curve of the winding stream, in every puddle along the road, and in every pane of glass that faced the west. "That's a nobby hoss," said Ricks, pointing down the hill. "What's the matter with the feller?" A slight, delicate-looking young man was lying in the road, between the horse and the fence. As the boys came up he stirred and tried to rise. "He's off his nut," said Ricks, starting to pass on; but Sandy stopped. "Get a fall?" he asked. The strange boy shook his head. "I guess I fainted. I must have ridden too hard. I'll be all right in a minute." He leaned his head against a tree and closed his eyes. Sandy eyed him curiously, taking in all the details of his riding-costume down to the short whip with the silver mounting. "I say, Ricks," he called to his companion, who was inspecting the horse, "can't we do somethin' for him?" Ricks reluctantly produced the short bottle. "I'm all right," insisted the boy, "if you'll just give me a lift to the saddle." But his eager eyes followed the bottle, and before Ricks had returned it to his pocket he held out his hand. "I believe I will take a drink if you don't mind." He drained the contents and then handed a coin to Ricks. "Now, if you'll help me," continued the stranger. "There! Thank you very much." "Say, what town is this, anyway?" asked Ricks. "Clayton," said the boy, trying to keep his horse from backing. "Looks like somethin' was doin'," said Ricks. "Circus, I believe." "Then I don't blame your nag for wantin' to go back!" cried Sandy. "Come on, Ricks; let's take in the show!" Half-way down the hill he turned. "Haven't we seen that fellow before, Ricks?" "Not as I knows of. He looked kinder pale and shaky, but you bet yer life he knowed how to hit the bottle." "He was sick," urged Sandy. "An' thirsty," added Ricks, with a smile of superior wisdom. The circus seemed such a timely opportunity to do business that they decided to rent a stand that night and sell their wares on the street corner. Ricks went on into town to arrange matters, while Sandy stopped in a grocery to buy their supper. His interest in the show had been of short duration. He felt listless and tired, something seemed to be buzzing continually in his head, and he shivered in his damp clothes. In the grocery he sat on a barrel and leaned his head against the wall. "What you shivering about?" asked the fat woman behind the counter, as she tied up his small package. "I feel like me skeleton was doin' a jig inside of me," said Sandy through chattering teeth. "Looks to me like you got a chill," said the fat woman. "You wait here, and I'll go git you some hot coffee." She disappeared in the rear of the store, and soon returned with a small coffee-pot and a cup and saucer. Sandy drank two cups and a half, then he asked the price. "Price?" repeated the woman, indignantly. "I reckon you don't know which side of the Ohio River you're on!" Sandy made up in gratitude what she declined in cash, and started on his way. At the corner of Main street and the bridge he found Ricks, who had rented a stand and was already arranging his wares. Sandy knelt on the sidewalk and unpacked his basket. "Only three bars of soap and seventy-five microscopes!" he exclaimed ruefully. "Let's be layin' fine stress on the microscopes, Ricks." "You do the jawin', Sandy. I ain't much on givin' 'em the talk," said Ricks. "Chuck a jolly at 'em and keep 'em hangin' round." As dark came on, trade began. The three bars of soap were sold, and a purple necktie. Sandy saw that public taste must be guided in the proper direction. He stepped up on a box and began eloquently to enumerate the diverse uses of microscopes. At each end of the stand a flaring torch lighted up the scene. The light fell on the careless, laughing faces in front, on Ricks Wilson, black-browed and suspicious, in the rear, and it fell full on Sandy, who stood on high and harangued the crowd. It fell on his broad, straight shoulders and on his shining tumbled hair; but it was not the light of the torch that gave the brightness to his eyes and the flush to his cheek. His head was throbbing, but he felt a curious sense of elation. He felt that he could stand there and talk the rest of his life. He made the crowd listen, he made it laugh, he made it buy. He told stories and sang songs, he coaxed and persuaded, until only a few microscopes were left and the old cigar-box was heavy with silver. "Step right up and take a look at a fly's leg! Every one ought to have a microscope in his home. When you get hard up it will make a dime look like a dollar, and a dollar like a five-dollar gold piece. Step right up! I ain't kiddin' you. Five cents for two looks, and fifteen for the microscope." Suddenly he faltered. At the edge of the crowd he had recognized two faces. They were sensitive slender faces, strangely alike in feature and unlike in expression. The young horseman of the afternoon was impatiently pushing his way through the crowd, while close behind him was a dainty girl with brown eyes slightly lifted at the outer corners, who held back in laughing wonder to watch the scene. "Ricks," said Sandy, lowering his voice unsteadily, "is this Kentucky?" "Yep; we crossed the line to-day." "I can't talk no more," said Sandy. "You'll have to be doin' it. I'm sick." It was not only the fever that was burning in his veins, and making him bury his hot head in his hands and wish he had never been born. It was shame and humiliation, and all because of the look on the face of the girl at the edge of the crowd. He sat in the shadow of the big box and fought his fight. The coffee and the excitement no longer kept him up; he was faint, and his breath came short. Above him he heard Ricks's rasping voice still talking to the few customers who were left. He knew, without glancing up, just how Ricks looked when he said the words; he knew how his teeth pushed his lips back, and how his restless little eyes watched everything at once. A sudden fierce repulsion swept over him for peddling, for Ricks, for himself. "And to think," he whispered, with a sob in his throat, "that I can't ever speak to a girl like that!" Ricks, jubilant over the success of the evening, decided to follow the circus, which was to be in the next town on the following day. "It ain't fur," he said. "We kin push on to-night and be ready to open early in the morning." Sandy, miserable in body and spirit, mechanically obeyed instructions. His head was getting queerer all the time, and he could not remember whether it was day or night. About a mile from Clayton he sank down by the road. "Say, Ricks," he said abruptly; "I'm after quittin' peddlin'." "What you goin' to do?" "I'm goin' to school." If Sandy had announced his intention of putting on baby clothes and being wheeled in a perambulator, Ricks could not have been more astonished. "What?" he asked in genuine doubt. "'Cause I want to be the right sort," burst out Sandy, passionately. "This ain't the way you get to be the right sort." Ricks surveyed him contemptuously. "Look-a here, are you comin' along of me or not?" "I can't," said Sandy, weakly. Ricks shifted his pack, and with never a parting word or a backward look he left his business partner of three months lying by the roadside, and tramped away in the darkness. Sandy started up to follow him; he tried to call, but he had no strength. He lay with his face on the road and talked. He knew there was nobody to listen, but still he kept on, softly talking about microscopes and pink soap, crying out again and again that he couldn't ever speak to a girl like that. After a long while somebody came. At first he thought he must have gone back to the land behind the peat-flames, for it was a great black witch who bent over him, and he instinctively felt about in the grass for the tender, soft hand which he used to press against his cheek. He found instead the hand of the witch herself, and he drew back in terror. "Fer de Lawd sake, honey, what's de matter wif you?" asked a kindly voice. Sandy opened his eyes. A tall old negro woman bent over him, her head tied up in a turban, and a shawl about her shoulders. "Did you git runned over?" she asked, peering down at him anxiously. Sandy tried to explain, but it was all the old mixture of soap and microscopes and never being able to speak to her. He knew he was talking at random, but he could not say the things he thought. "Where'd you come from, boy?" "Curragh Chase, Limerick," murmured Sandy. "'Fore de Lawd, he's done been cunjered!" cried the old woman, aghast. "I'll git it outen of you, chile. You jus' come home wif yer Aunt Melvy; she'll take keer of you. Put yer arm on my shoulder; dat's right. Don't you mind where you gwine at. I got yer bundle. It ain't fur. Hit's dat little house a-hangin' on de side of de hill. Dey calls it 'Who'd 'a' Thought It,' 'ca'se you nebber would 'a' thought of puttin' a house dere. Dat's right; lean on yer mammy. I'll git dem old cunjers outen you." Thus encouraged and supported, Sandy stumbled on through the dark, up a hillside that seemed never to end, across a bridge, then into a tiny log cabin, where he dropped exhausted. Off and on during the night he knew that there was a fire in the room, and that strange things were happening to him. But it was all so queer and unnatural that he did not know where the dreams left off and the real began. He was vaguely conscious of his left foot being tied to the right bedpost, of a lock of his hair being cut off and burned on the hearth, and of a low monotonous chant that seemed to rise and fall with the flicker of the flames. And when he cried out with the pain in his sleep, a kindly black face bent over him, and the chant changed into a soothing murmur: "Nebber you min', sonny; Aunt Melvy gwine git dem cunjers out. She gwine stay by you. You hol' on to her han', an' go to sleep; she'll git dem old cunjers out." CHAPTER VI HOLLIS FARM Clayton was an easy-going, prosperous old town which, in the enthusiasm of youth, had started to climb the long hill to the north, but growing indolent with age, | likely | How many times the word 'likely' appears in the text? | 0 |
ventured a step nearer and continued his observations. As he did so, he made a discovery. The soft white of her cheek was gradually becoming pinker and pinker; the color which began under her lace collar stole up and up until it reached her eyes, which still gazed determinedly before her. Sandy admired it as a traveler admires a sunrise, and with as little idea of having caused it. The line of passengers moved slowly forward, and his heart sank. Suddenly his eyes fell upon the little hand-bag which she carried. On one end, in small white letters, was: "Ruth Nelson, Kentucky, U.S.A." He watched her until she was lost to view, then he turned eagerly back into the crowd. Elbowing his way forward, he seized Ricks by the arm. "Hi, there!" he cried; "I've changed me mind. I'm goin' with you to Kentucky!" So this impetuous knight errant enlisted under the will-o'-the-wisp love, and started joyously forth upon his quest. CHAPTER III THE CURSE OF WEALTH It is an oft-proved adage that for ten who can stand adversity there is but one who can stand prosperity. Sandy, alas! was no exception to any rule which went to prove the frailty of human nature. The sudden acquisition of ten dollars cast him into a whirlpool of temptation from which he made little effort to escape. "I ain't goin' on to-day," announced Ricks. "I'm goin' to lay in my goods for peddlin'. I reckon you kin come along of me." Sandy accepted a long and strong cigar, tilted his hat, and unconsciously caught Ricks's slouching gait as they went down the street. After all, it was rather pleasant to associate with sophistication. "We'll git on the outside of a little dinner," said Ricks; "and I'll mosey round in the stores awhile, then I'll take you to a show or two. It's a mighty good thing for you that you got me along." Sandy thought so too. He cheerfully stood treat for the rest of the day, and felt that it was small return for Ricks's condescension. "How much you got left?" asked Ricks, that night, as they stopped under a street light to take stock. Sandy held out a couple of dollars and a fifty-cent piece. "Enough to put on the eyes of two and a half dead men," he said as he curiously eyed the strange money. "One, two,--two and a half," counted Ricks. "Shillings?" asked Sandy, amazed. Ricks nodded. "And have I blowed all that to-day?" "What of it?" asked Ricks. "I seen a bloke onct what lit his cigar with a bill like the one you had!" "But the doctor said it was two pounds," insisted Sandy, incredulously. He did not realize the expense of a personally conducted tour of the Bowery. "Well, it's went," said Ricks, resignedly. "You can't count on settin' up biz with what's left." Sandy's brows clouded, and he shifted his position restlessly. "Now I ax yerself, Ricks, what'u'd you do?" he said. "Me? I don't give advice to nobody. But effen it was me I'd know mighty quick what to do." "What?" said Sandy, eagerly. "Buy a dawg." "A dog? I ain't goin' blind." "Lor'! but you're a softhorn," said Ricks, contemptuously. "I s'pose you'd count on leadin' him round by a pink ribbon." "Oh, you mean a fighter?" "Sure. My last dawg could do ever'thing in sight. She was so game she went after herself in a lookin'-glass and got kilt. Oh, they's money in dawgs, and I knows how to make 'em win ever' time." Sandy, tired as he was from the day's excitement, insisted upon going in search of one at once. He already had visions of becoming the proud owner of a canine champion that would put him immediately into the position of lighting his cigar with a two-pound note. The first three weeks of their experience on the road went far to realize their expectations. The bulldog, which had been bought in partnership, proved a conquering hero. Through the long summer days the boys tramped over the country, peddling their wares, and by night they conducted sundry unlawful encounters wherever an opponent could be found. Sandy enjoyed the peddling. It was astonishing what friendly sociability and confidential intimacy were established by the sale of blue suspenders and pink soap. He left a line of smiling testimonials in his wake. But if the days were proving satisfactory, so much could not be said of the nights. Even the phenomenal luck that followed his dog failed to keep up his enthusiasm. "You ain't a nachrul sport," complained Ricks. "That's your trouble. When the last fight was on, you set on the fence and listened at a' ole idiot scrapin' a fiddle down in the valley." Sandy made a feeble defense, but he knew in his soul it was so. Affairs reached a climax one night in an old barn on the outskirts of a town. A fight was about to begin when Sandy discovered Ricks judiciously administering a sedative to the enemy's dog. Then understanding dawned upon him, and his rage was elemental. With a valor that lacked the better part of discretion, he hurled himself through the crowd and fell upon Ricks. An hour later, bruised, bloody, and vanquished, he stumbled along through the dreary night. Hot with rage and defeat, utterly ignorant of his whereabouts, his one friend turned foe, he was indeed in sorry plight. He climbed over the fence and lay face downward in the long, cool grass, stretching his bruised and aching body along the ground. A gentle night wind rustled above him, and by and by a star peeped out, then another and another. Before he knew it, he was listening to the frogs and katydids, and wondering what they were talking about. He ceased to think about Ricks and his woes, and gave himself up to the delicious, drowsy peace that was all about him. For, child of nature that he was, he had turned to the only mother he knew. CHAPTER IV SIDE-TRACKED The next morning, at the nearest railroad station, an irate cattleman was trying to hire some one to take charge of a car of live stock which was on its way to a great exposition in a neighboring city. The man he had counted on had not appeared, and the train was about due. As he was turning away in desperation he felt a tug at his elbow. Looking around, he saw a queer figure with a countenance that resembled a first attempt at a charcoal sketch from life: one cheek was larger than the other, the mouth was sadly out of drawing, the eyes shone out from among the bruises like the sun from behind the clouds. But if the features were disfigured, the smile was none the less courageous. Sandy had found a friendly sympathizer at a neighboring farm-house, had been given a good breakfast, had made his toilet, and was ready for the next round in the fight of life. "I'll be doin' yer job, sir, whatever it is," he said pleasantly. The man eyed him with misgiving, but his need was urgent. "All you have to do is to stay in the car and look after the cattle. My man will meet you when you reach the city. Do you think you can do it?" "Just keep company with the cows?" cried Sandy. "Sure and I can!" So the bargain was struck, and that night found him in the great city with a dollar in his pocket and a promise of work in the morning. Tired and sore from the experiences of the night before, he sought a cheap lodging-house near by. A hook-nosed woman, carrying a smoking lamp, conducted him to a room under the eaves. It was small and suffocating. He involuntarily lifted his hands and touched the ceiling. "It's like a boilin' potato I feel," he said; "and the pot's so little and the lid so tight!" He went to the window, and taking out the nail that held down the sash, pushed it up. Below him lay the great, bustling city, cabs and cars in constant motion, long lines of blazing lights marking the thoroughfares, the thunder of trains in the big station, and above and below and through it all a dull monotonous roar, like the faraway unceasing cry of a hungry beast. He sank on his knees by the window, and a restless, nervous look came into his eyes. "It presses in, too," he thought. "It's all crowdin' over me. I'm just me by myself, all alone." A tear made a white course down his grimy cheek, then another and another. He brushed them impatiently away with the cap he still held in his hand. Rising abruptly, he turned away from the window, and the hot air of the room again smote him. The smoking lamp had blackened the chimney, and as he bent to turn it down, he caught his reflection in a small mirror over the table. What the bruises and swelling had left undone the cheap mirror completed. He started back. Was that the boy he knew as himself? Was that Sandy Kilday who had come to America to seek his fortune? He stared in a sort of fascinated horror at that other boy in the mirror. Before he had been afraid to be by himself, now he was afraid of himself. He seized his cap, and blowing out the lamp, plunged down four flights of steep narrow steps and out into the street. A number of people were crowding into a street-car marked "Exposition." Sandy, ever a straw in the current, joined them. Once more down among his fellow-men, he began to feel more comfortable. He cheerfully paid his entrance fee with one of the two silver coins in his pocket. The first building he entered was the art gallery, and the first picture that caught his eye held him spellbound. He sat before it all the evening with fascinated eyes, devouring every detail and oblivious to the curious interest he was attracting; for the huge canvas represented the Knights of the Round Table, and he had at last found friends. All the way back he thought about the picture; it was not until he reached his room that the former loneliness returned. But even then it was not for long. A pair of yellow eyes peered around the window-sill, and a plaintive "meow" begged for admittance. It was plainly Providence that guided that thin and ill-treated kitten to Sandy's window. The welcome it received must have completely restored its shaken faith in human nature. Tired as he was, Sandy went out and bought some milk. He wanted to establish a firm friendship; for if he was to stay in this lonely city, he must have something to love, if only a prodigal kitten of doubtful pedigree. During the long, hot days that followed Sandy worked faithfully at the depot. The regular hours and confinement seemed doubly irksome after the bohemian life on the road. The Exposition was his salvation. No sacrifice seemed too great to enable him to get beyond that magic gate. For the "Knights of the Round Table" was but the beginning of miles and miles of wonderful pictures. He even bought a catalogue, and, prompted by a natural curiosity for anything that interested him, learned the names of the artists he liked best, and the bits of biography attached to each. He would recite these to the yellow kitten when he got back to his little hot-box of a room. One night the art gallery was closed, and he went into another big building where a crowd of people were seated. At one end of it was a great pipe-organ, and after a while some one began to play. With his cap tightly grasped in both hands, he tiptoed down the center aisle and stood breathlessly drinking in the wonderful tones that seemed to be coming from his own heart. "Get out of the way, boy," said an usher. "You are blocking the aisle." A queer-appearing lady who looked like a man touched his elbow. "Here's a seat," she said in a deep voice. "Thank you, sir," said Sandy, absently. He scarcely knew whether he was sitting or standing. He only wanted to be let alone, so that he could listen to those strange, beautiful sounds that made a shiver of joy go down his back. Art had had her day; it was Music's turn. When the last number had been played, he turned to the queer lady: "Do they do it every night?" She smiled at his enthusiasm: "Wednesdays and Saturdays." "Say," said Sandy, confidentially, "if you come first do you save me a seat, and I'll do the same by you." From that time on he decided to be a musician, and he lived on two scanty meals a day in order to attend the concerts. But this exalted scheme of high thinking and plain living soon became irksome. One day, when his loneliness weighed most heavily upon him, he was sent with a message out to the switch-station. As he tramped back along the track he spied a familiar figure ahead of him. There was no mistaking that short, slouching body with the peddler's pack strapped on its back. With a cry of joy, Sandy bounded after Ricks Wilson. He actually hugged him in his joy to be once more with some one he knew. Ricks glanced uneasily at the scar above his eye. Sandy clapped his hand over it and laughed. "It's all right, Ricks; a miss is as good as a mile. I ain't mad any more. It's straight home with me you are goin'; and if we can get the two feet of you into me bit of a room, we'll have a dinner that's fit for a king." On the way they laid in a supply of provisions, Sandy even going to the expense of a bottle of beer for Ricks. The yellow kitten arched her back and showed general signs of hostility when the stranger was introduced. But her unfriendly demonstrations were ignored. Ricks was the honored guest, and Sandy extended to him the full hospitality of the establishment. "Put your pack on the floor and yerself in the chair, and I'll get ye filled up in the blink of an eyelash. Don't be mindin' the cat, Ricks. She's just lettin' on she don't take to you. She give me the wink on the sly." Ricks, expanding under the influence of food and drink, became eloquent. He recounted courageous adventures of the past, and outlined marvelous schemes for the future, by which he was going to make a short cut to fame and glory. When it was time for him to go, Sandy heaved a sigh of regret. For two hours he had been beguiled by Ricks's romances, and now he had to go back to the humdrum duties at the depot, and receive a sound rating for his belated appearance. "Which way might you be goin', Ricks?" he asked wistfully. "Same place I started fer," said Ricks. "Kentucky." The will-o'-the-wisp, which had been hiding his light, suddenly swung it full in the eyes of Sandy. Once more he saw the little maid of his dreams, and once more he threw discretion to the winds and followed the vision. Hastily collecting his few possessions, he rolled them into a bundle, and slipping the surprised kitten into his pocket, he gladly followed Ricks once more out into the broad green meadows, along the white and shining roads that lead over the hills to Kentucky. CHAPTER V SANDY RETIRES FROM BUSINESS "This here is too blame slow fer me," said Ricks, one chilly night in late September, as he and Sandy huddled against a haystack and settled up their weekly accounts. "Fifty-five cents! Now ain't that a' o'nery dab? Here's a quarter fer you and thirty cents fer me; that's as even as you kin split it." "It's the microscopes that'll be sellin'," said Sandy, hopefully, as he pulled his coat collar about his ears and shivered. "The man as sold 'em to me said they was a great bargain entirely. He thought there was money in 'em." "For him," said Ricks, contemptuously. "It's like the man what gulled us on the penknives. I lay to git even with him, all right." "But he give us the night's lodgin' and some breakfast," said Sandy. Ricks took a long drink from a short bottle, then holding it before him, he said impressively: "A feller could do me ninety-nine good turns, and if he done me one bad one it would wipe 'em all out. I got to git even with anybody what does me dirty, if it takes me all my life." "But don't you forget to remember?" "Not me. I ain't that kind." Sandy leaned wearily against the haystack and tried to shelter himself from the wind. A continued diet of bread and water had made him sensitive to the changes in the weather. "This here grub is kinder hard on yer head-rails," said Ricks, trying to bite through a piece of stale bread. A baker had let them have three loaves for a dime because they were old and hard. Sandy cast a longing look at Ricks's short bottle. It seemed to remedy so many ills, heat or cold, thirst or hunger. But the strict principles applied during his tender years made him hesitate. "I wish we hadn't lost the kitten," he said, feeling the need of a more cheerful companion. "I'm a-goin' to git another dawg," announced Ricks. "I'm sick of this here doin's." "Ain't we goin' to be turfmen?" asked Sandy, who had listened by the hour to thrilling accounts of life on the track, and had accepted Ricks's ambition as his own. "Not on twenty cents per week," growled Ricks. Sandy's heart sank; he knew what a new dog meant. He burrowed in the hay and tried to sleep, but there was a queer pain that seemed to catch hold of his breath whenever he breathed down deep. It rained the next day, and they tramped disconsolately through village after village. They had oil-cloth covers for their baskets, but their own backs were soaked to the skin. Toward evening they came to the top of a hill, from which they could look directly down upon a large town lying comfortably in the crook of a river's elbow. The rain had stopped, and the belated sun, struggling through the clouds, made up for lost time by reflecting itself in every curve of the winding stream, in every puddle along the road, and in every pane of glass that faced the west. "That's a nobby hoss," said Ricks, pointing down the hill. "What's the matter with the feller?" A slight, delicate-looking young man was lying in the road, between the horse and the fence. As the boys came up he stirred and tried to rise. "He's off his nut," said Ricks, starting to pass on; but Sandy stopped. "Get a fall?" he asked. The strange boy shook his head. "I guess I fainted. I must have ridden too hard. I'll be all right in a minute." He leaned his head against a tree and closed his eyes. Sandy eyed him curiously, taking in all the details of his riding-costume down to the short whip with the silver mounting. "I say, Ricks," he called to his companion, who was inspecting the horse, "can't we do somethin' for him?" Ricks reluctantly produced the short bottle. "I'm all right," insisted the boy, "if you'll just give me a lift to the saddle." But his eager eyes followed the bottle, and before Ricks had returned it to his pocket he held out his hand. "I believe I will take a drink if you don't mind." He drained the contents and then handed a coin to Ricks. "Now, if you'll help me," continued the stranger. "There! Thank you very much." "Say, what town is this, anyway?" asked Ricks. "Clayton," said the boy, trying to keep his horse from backing. "Looks like somethin' was doin'," said Ricks. "Circus, I believe." "Then I don't blame your nag for wantin' to go back!" cried Sandy. "Come on, Ricks; let's take in the show!" Half-way down the hill he turned. "Haven't we seen that fellow before, Ricks?" "Not as I knows of. He looked kinder pale and shaky, but you bet yer life he knowed how to hit the bottle." "He was sick," urged Sandy. "An' thirsty," added Ricks, with a smile of superior wisdom. The circus seemed such a timely opportunity to do business that they decided to rent a stand that night and sell their wares on the street corner. Ricks went on into town to arrange matters, while Sandy stopped in a grocery to buy their supper. His interest in the show had been of short duration. He felt listless and tired, something seemed to be buzzing continually in his head, and he shivered in his damp clothes. In the grocery he sat on a barrel and leaned his head against the wall. "What you shivering about?" asked the fat woman behind the counter, as she tied up his small package. "I feel like me skeleton was doin' a jig inside of me," said Sandy through chattering teeth. "Looks to me like you got a chill," said the fat woman. "You wait here, and I'll go git you some hot coffee." She disappeared in the rear of the store, and soon returned with a small coffee-pot and a cup and saucer. Sandy drank two cups and a half, then he asked the price. "Price?" repeated the woman, indignantly. "I reckon you don't know which side of the Ohio River you're on!" Sandy made up in gratitude what she declined in cash, and started on his way. At the corner of Main street and the bridge he found Ricks, who had rented a stand and was already arranging his wares. Sandy knelt on the sidewalk and unpacked his basket. "Only three bars of soap and seventy-five microscopes!" he exclaimed ruefully. "Let's be layin' fine stress on the microscopes, Ricks." "You do the jawin', Sandy. I ain't much on givin' 'em the talk," said Ricks. "Chuck a jolly at 'em and keep 'em hangin' round." As dark came on, trade began. The three bars of soap were sold, and a purple necktie. Sandy saw that public taste must be guided in the proper direction. He stepped up on a box and began eloquently to enumerate the diverse uses of microscopes. At each end of the stand a flaring torch lighted up the scene. The light fell on the careless, laughing faces in front, on Ricks Wilson, black-browed and suspicious, in the rear, and it fell full on Sandy, who stood on high and harangued the crowd. It fell on his broad, straight shoulders and on his shining tumbled hair; but it was not the light of the torch that gave the brightness to his eyes and the flush to his cheek. His head was throbbing, but he felt a curious sense of elation. He felt that he could stand there and talk the rest of his life. He made the crowd listen, he made it laugh, he made it buy. He told stories and sang songs, he coaxed and persuaded, until only a few microscopes were left and the old cigar-box was heavy with silver. "Step right up and take a look at a fly's leg! Every one ought to have a microscope in his home. When you get hard up it will make a dime look like a dollar, and a dollar like a five-dollar gold piece. Step right up! I ain't kiddin' you. Five cents for two looks, and fifteen for the microscope." Suddenly he faltered. At the edge of the crowd he had recognized two faces. They were sensitive slender faces, strangely alike in feature and unlike in expression. The young horseman of the afternoon was impatiently pushing his way through the crowd, while close behind him was a dainty girl with brown eyes slightly lifted at the outer corners, who held back in laughing wonder to watch the scene. "Ricks," said Sandy, lowering his voice unsteadily, "is this Kentucky?" "Yep; we crossed the line to-day." "I can't talk no more," said Sandy. "You'll have to be doin' it. I'm sick." It was not only the fever that was burning in his veins, and making him bury his hot head in his hands and wish he had never been born. It was shame and humiliation, and all because of the look on the face of the girl at the edge of the crowd. He sat in the shadow of the big box and fought his fight. The coffee and the excitement no longer kept him up; he was faint, and his breath came short. Above him he heard Ricks's rasping voice still talking to the few customers who were left. He knew, without glancing up, just how Ricks looked when he said the words; he knew how his teeth pushed his lips back, and how his restless little eyes watched everything at once. A sudden fierce repulsion swept over him for peddling, for Ricks, for himself. "And to think," he whispered, with a sob in his throat, "that I can't ever speak to a girl like that!" Ricks, jubilant over the success of the evening, decided to follow the circus, which was to be in the next town on the following day. "It ain't fur," he said. "We kin push on to-night and be ready to open early in the morning." Sandy, miserable in body and spirit, mechanically obeyed instructions. His head was getting queerer all the time, and he could not remember whether it was day or night. About a mile from Clayton he sank down by the road. "Say, Ricks," he said abruptly; "I'm after quittin' peddlin'." "What you goin' to do?" "I'm goin' to school." If Sandy had announced his intention of putting on baby clothes and being wheeled in a perambulator, Ricks could not have been more astonished. "What?" he asked in genuine doubt. "'Cause I want to be the right sort," burst out Sandy, passionately. "This ain't the way you get to be the right sort." Ricks surveyed him contemptuously. "Look-a here, are you comin' along of me or not?" "I can't," said Sandy, weakly. Ricks shifted his pack, and with never a parting word or a backward look he left his business partner of three months lying by the roadside, and tramped away in the darkness. Sandy started up to follow him; he tried to call, but he had no strength. He lay with his face on the road and talked. He knew there was nobody to listen, but still he kept on, softly talking about microscopes and pink soap, crying out again and again that he couldn't ever speak to a girl like that. After a long while somebody came. At first he thought he must have gone back to the land behind the peat-flames, for it was a great black witch who bent over him, and he instinctively felt about in the grass for the tender, soft hand which he used to press against his cheek. He found instead the hand of the witch herself, and he drew back in terror. "Fer de Lawd sake, honey, what's de matter wif you?" asked a kindly voice. Sandy opened his eyes. A tall old negro woman bent over him, her head tied up in a turban, and a shawl about her shoulders. "Did you git runned over?" she asked, peering down at him anxiously. Sandy tried to explain, but it was all the old mixture of soap and microscopes and never being able to speak to her. He knew he was talking at random, but he could not say the things he thought. "Where'd you come from, boy?" "Curragh Chase, Limerick," murmured Sandy. "'Fore de Lawd, he's done been cunjered!" cried the old woman, aghast. "I'll git it outen of you, chile. You jus' come home wif yer Aunt Melvy; she'll take keer of you. Put yer arm on my shoulder; dat's right. Don't you mind where you gwine at. I got yer bundle. It ain't fur. Hit's dat little house a-hangin' on de side of de hill. Dey calls it 'Who'd 'a' Thought It,' 'ca'se you nebber would 'a' thought of puttin' a house dere. Dat's right; lean on yer mammy. I'll git dem old cunjers outen you." Thus encouraged and supported, Sandy stumbled on through the dark, up a hillside that seemed never to end, across a bridge, then into a tiny log cabin, where he dropped exhausted. Off and on during the night he knew that there was a fire in the room, and that strange things were happening to him. But it was all so queer and unnatural that he did not know where the dreams left off and the real began. He was vaguely conscious of his left foot being tied to the right bedpost, of a lock of his hair being cut off and burned on the hearth, and of a low monotonous chant that seemed to rise and fall with the flicker of the flames. And when he cried out with the pain in his sleep, a kindly black face bent over him, and the chant changed into a soothing murmur: "Nebber you min', sonny; Aunt Melvy gwine git dem cunjers out. She gwine stay by you. You hol' on to her han', an' go to sleep; she'll git dem old cunjers out." CHAPTER VI HOLLIS FARM Clayton was an easy-going, prosperous old town which, in the enthusiasm of youth, had started to climb the long hill to the north, but growing indolent with age, | days | How many times the word 'days' appears in the text? | 3 |
ventured a step nearer and continued his observations. As he did so, he made a discovery. The soft white of her cheek was gradually becoming pinker and pinker; the color which began under her lace collar stole up and up until it reached her eyes, which still gazed determinedly before her. Sandy admired it as a traveler admires a sunrise, and with as little idea of having caused it. The line of passengers moved slowly forward, and his heart sank. Suddenly his eyes fell upon the little hand-bag which she carried. On one end, in small white letters, was: "Ruth Nelson, Kentucky, U.S.A." He watched her until she was lost to view, then he turned eagerly back into the crowd. Elbowing his way forward, he seized Ricks by the arm. "Hi, there!" he cried; "I've changed me mind. I'm goin' with you to Kentucky!" So this impetuous knight errant enlisted under the will-o'-the-wisp love, and started joyously forth upon his quest. CHAPTER III THE CURSE OF WEALTH It is an oft-proved adage that for ten who can stand adversity there is but one who can stand prosperity. Sandy, alas! was no exception to any rule which went to prove the frailty of human nature. The sudden acquisition of ten dollars cast him into a whirlpool of temptation from which he made little effort to escape. "I ain't goin' on to-day," announced Ricks. "I'm goin' to lay in my goods for peddlin'. I reckon you kin come along of me." Sandy accepted a long and strong cigar, tilted his hat, and unconsciously caught Ricks's slouching gait as they went down the street. After all, it was rather pleasant to associate with sophistication. "We'll git on the outside of a little dinner," said Ricks; "and I'll mosey round in the stores awhile, then I'll take you to a show or two. It's a mighty good thing for you that you got me along." Sandy thought so too. He cheerfully stood treat for the rest of the day, and felt that it was small return for Ricks's condescension. "How much you got left?" asked Ricks, that night, as they stopped under a street light to take stock. Sandy held out a couple of dollars and a fifty-cent piece. "Enough to put on the eyes of two and a half dead men," he said as he curiously eyed the strange money. "One, two,--two and a half," counted Ricks. "Shillings?" asked Sandy, amazed. Ricks nodded. "And have I blowed all that to-day?" "What of it?" asked Ricks. "I seen a bloke onct what lit his cigar with a bill like the one you had!" "But the doctor said it was two pounds," insisted Sandy, incredulously. He did not realize the expense of a personally conducted tour of the Bowery. "Well, it's went," said Ricks, resignedly. "You can't count on settin' up biz with what's left." Sandy's brows clouded, and he shifted his position restlessly. "Now I ax yerself, Ricks, what'u'd you do?" he said. "Me? I don't give advice to nobody. But effen it was me I'd know mighty quick what to do." "What?" said Sandy, eagerly. "Buy a dawg." "A dog? I ain't goin' blind." "Lor'! but you're a softhorn," said Ricks, contemptuously. "I s'pose you'd count on leadin' him round by a pink ribbon." "Oh, you mean a fighter?" "Sure. My last dawg could do ever'thing in sight. She was so game she went after herself in a lookin'-glass and got kilt. Oh, they's money in dawgs, and I knows how to make 'em win ever' time." Sandy, tired as he was from the day's excitement, insisted upon going in search of one at once. He already had visions of becoming the proud owner of a canine champion that would put him immediately into the position of lighting his cigar with a two-pound note. The first three weeks of their experience on the road went far to realize their expectations. The bulldog, which had been bought in partnership, proved a conquering hero. Through the long summer days the boys tramped over the country, peddling their wares, and by night they conducted sundry unlawful encounters wherever an opponent could be found. Sandy enjoyed the peddling. It was astonishing what friendly sociability and confidential intimacy were established by the sale of blue suspenders and pink soap. He left a line of smiling testimonials in his wake. But if the days were proving satisfactory, so much could not be said of the nights. Even the phenomenal luck that followed his dog failed to keep up his enthusiasm. "You ain't a nachrul sport," complained Ricks. "That's your trouble. When the last fight was on, you set on the fence and listened at a' ole idiot scrapin' a fiddle down in the valley." Sandy made a feeble defense, but he knew in his soul it was so. Affairs reached a climax one night in an old barn on the outskirts of a town. A fight was about to begin when Sandy discovered Ricks judiciously administering a sedative to the enemy's dog. Then understanding dawned upon him, and his rage was elemental. With a valor that lacked the better part of discretion, he hurled himself through the crowd and fell upon Ricks. An hour later, bruised, bloody, and vanquished, he stumbled along through the dreary night. Hot with rage and defeat, utterly ignorant of his whereabouts, his one friend turned foe, he was indeed in sorry plight. He climbed over the fence and lay face downward in the long, cool grass, stretching his bruised and aching body along the ground. A gentle night wind rustled above him, and by and by a star peeped out, then another and another. Before he knew it, he was listening to the frogs and katydids, and wondering what they were talking about. He ceased to think about Ricks and his woes, and gave himself up to the delicious, drowsy peace that was all about him. For, child of nature that he was, he had turned to the only mother he knew. CHAPTER IV SIDE-TRACKED The next morning, at the nearest railroad station, an irate cattleman was trying to hire some one to take charge of a car of live stock which was on its way to a great exposition in a neighboring city. The man he had counted on had not appeared, and the train was about due. As he was turning away in desperation he felt a tug at his elbow. Looking around, he saw a queer figure with a countenance that resembled a first attempt at a charcoal sketch from life: one cheek was larger than the other, the mouth was sadly out of drawing, the eyes shone out from among the bruises like the sun from behind the clouds. But if the features were disfigured, the smile was none the less courageous. Sandy had found a friendly sympathizer at a neighboring farm-house, had been given a good breakfast, had made his toilet, and was ready for the next round in the fight of life. "I'll be doin' yer job, sir, whatever it is," he said pleasantly. The man eyed him with misgiving, but his need was urgent. "All you have to do is to stay in the car and look after the cattle. My man will meet you when you reach the city. Do you think you can do it?" "Just keep company with the cows?" cried Sandy. "Sure and I can!" So the bargain was struck, and that night found him in the great city with a dollar in his pocket and a promise of work in the morning. Tired and sore from the experiences of the night before, he sought a cheap lodging-house near by. A hook-nosed woman, carrying a smoking lamp, conducted him to a room under the eaves. It was small and suffocating. He involuntarily lifted his hands and touched the ceiling. "It's like a boilin' potato I feel," he said; "and the pot's so little and the lid so tight!" He went to the window, and taking out the nail that held down the sash, pushed it up. Below him lay the great, bustling city, cabs and cars in constant motion, long lines of blazing lights marking the thoroughfares, the thunder of trains in the big station, and above and below and through it all a dull monotonous roar, like the faraway unceasing cry of a hungry beast. He sank on his knees by the window, and a restless, nervous look came into his eyes. "It presses in, too," he thought. "It's all crowdin' over me. I'm just me by myself, all alone." A tear made a white course down his grimy cheek, then another and another. He brushed them impatiently away with the cap he still held in his hand. Rising abruptly, he turned away from the window, and the hot air of the room again smote him. The smoking lamp had blackened the chimney, and as he bent to turn it down, he caught his reflection in a small mirror over the table. What the bruises and swelling had left undone the cheap mirror completed. He started back. Was that the boy he knew as himself? Was that Sandy Kilday who had come to America to seek his fortune? He stared in a sort of fascinated horror at that other boy in the mirror. Before he had been afraid to be by himself, now he was afraid of himself. He seized his cap, and blowing out the lamp, plunged down four flights of steep narrow steps and out into the street. A number of people were crowding into a street-car marked "Exposition." Sandy, ever a straw in the current, joined them. Once more down among his fellow-men, he began to feel more comfortable. He cheerfully paid his entrance fee with one of the two silver coins in his pocket. The first building he entered was the art gallery, and the first picture that caught his eye held him spellbound. He sat before it all the evening with fascinated eyes, devouring every detail and oblivious to the curious interest he was attracting; for the huge canvas represented the Knights of the Round Table, and he had at last found friends. All the way back he thought about the picture; it was not until he reached his room that the former loneliness returned. But even then it was not for long. A pair of yellow eyes peered around the window-sill, and a plaintive "meow" begged for admittance. It was plainly Providence that guided that thin and ill-treated kitten to Sandy's window. The welcome it received must have completely restored its shaken faith in human nature. Tired as he was, Sandy went out and bought some milk. He wanted to establish a firm friendship; for if he was to stay in this lonely city, he must have something to love, if only a prodigal kitten of doubtful pedigree. During the long, hot days that followed Sandy worked faithfully at the depot. The regular hours and confinement seemed doubly irksome after the bohemian life on the road. The Exposition was his salvation. No sacrifice seemed too great to enable him to get beyond that magic gate. For the "Knights of the Round Table" was but the beginning of miles and miles of wonderful pictures. He even bought a catalogue, and, prompted by a natural curiosity for anything that interested him, learned the names of the artists he liked best, and the bits of biography attached to each. He would recite these to the yellow kitten when he got back to his little hot-box of a room. One night the art gallery was closed, and he went into another big building where a crowd of people were seated. At one end of it was a great pipe-organ, and after a while some one began to play. With his cap tightly grasped in both hands, he tiptoed down the center aisle and stood breathlessly drinking in the wonderful tones that seemed to be coming from his own heart. "Get out of the way, boy," said an usher. "You are blocking the aisle." A queer-appearing lady who looked like a man touched his elbow. "Here's a seat," she said in a deep voice. "Thank you, sir," said Sandy, absently. He scarcely knew whether he was sitting or standing. He only wanted to be let alone, so that he could listen to those strange, beautiful sounds that made a shiver of joy go down his back. Art had had her day; it was Music's turn. When the last number had been played, he turned to the queer lady: "Do they do it every night?" She smiled at his enthusiasm: "Wednesdays and Saturdays." "Say," said Sandy, confidentially, "if you come first do you save me a seat, and I'll do the same by you." From that time on he decided to be a musician, and he lived on two scanty meals a day in order to attend the concerts. But this exalted scheme of high thinking and plain living soon became irksome. One day, when his loneliness weighed most heavily upon him, he was sent with a message out to the switch-station. As he tramped back along the track he spied a familiar figure ahead of him. There was no mistaking that short, slouching body with the peddler's pack strapped on its back. With a cry of joy, Sandy bounded after Ricks Wilson. He actually hugged him in his joy to be once more with some one he knew. Ricks glanced uneasily at the scar above his eye. Sandy clapped his hand over it and laughed. "It's all right, Ricks; a miss is as good as a mile. I ain't mad any more. It's straight home with me you are goin'; and if we can get the two feet of you into me bit of a room, we'll have a dinner that's fit for a king." On the way they laid in a supply of provisions, Sandy even going to the expense of a bottle of beer for Ricks. The yellow kitten arched her back and showed general signs of hostility when the stranger was introduced. But her unfriendly demonstrations were ignored. Ricks was the honored guest, and Sandy extended to him the full hospitality of the establishment. "Put your pack on the floor and yerself in the chair, and I'll get ye filled up in the blink of an eyelash. Don't be mindin' the cat, Ricks. She's just lettin' on she don't take to you. She give me the wink on the sly." Ricks, expanding under the influence of food and drink, became eloquent. He recounted courageous adventures of the past, and outlined marvelous schemes for the future, by which he was going to make a short cut to fame and glory. When it was time for him to go, Sandy heaved a sigh of regret. For two hours he had been beguiled by Ricks's romances, and now he had to go back to the humdrum duties at the depot, and receive a sound rating for his belated appearance. "Which way might you be goin', Ricks?" he asked wistfully. "Same place I started fer," said Ricks. "Kentucky." The will-o'-the-wisp, which had been hiding his light, suddenly swung it full in the eyes of Sandy. Once more he saw the little maid of his dreams, and once more he threw discretion to the winds and followed the vision. Hastily collecting his few possessions, he rolled them into a bundle, and slipping the surprised kitten into his pocket, he gladly followed Ricks once more out into the broad green meadows, along the white and shining roads that lead over the hills to Kentucky. CHAPTER V SANDY RETIRES FROM BUSINESS "This here is too blame slow fer me," said Ricks, one chilly night in late September, as he and Sandy huddled against a haystack and settled up their weekly accounts. "Fifty-five cents! Now ain't that a' o'nery dab? Here's a quarter fer you and thirty cents fer me; that's as even as you kin split it." "It's the microscopes that'll be sellin'," said Sandy, hopefully, as he pulled his coat collar about his ears and shivered. "The man as sold 'em to me said they was a great bargain entirely. He thought there was money in 'em." "For him," said Ricks, contemptuously. "It's like the man what gulled us on the penknives. I lay to git even with him, all right." "But he give us the night's lodgin' and some breakfast," said Sandy. Ricks took a long drink from a short bottle, then holding it before him, he said impressively: "A feller could do me ninety-nine good turns, and if he done me one bad one it would wipe 'em all out. I got to git even with anybody what does me dirty, if it takes me all my life." "But don't you forget to remember?" "Not me. I ain't that kind." Sandy leaned wearily against the haystack and tried to shelter himself from the wind. A continued diet of bread and water had made him sensitive to the changes in the weather. "This here grub is kinder hard on yer head-rails," said Ricks, trying to bite through a piece of stale bread. A baker had let them have three loaves for a dime because they were old and hard. Sandy cast a longing look at Ricks's short bottle. It seemed to remedy so many ills, heat or cold, thirst or hunger. But the strict principles applied during his tender years made him hesitate. "I wish we hadn't lost the kitten," he said, feeling the need of a more cheerful companion. "I'm a-goin' to git another dawg," announced Ricks. "I'm sick of this here doin's." "Ain't we goin' to be turfmen?" asked Sandy, who had listened by the hour to thrilling accounts of life on the track, and had accepted Ricks's ambition as his own. "Not on twenty cents per week," growled Ricks. Sandy's heart sank; he knew what a new dog meant. He burrowed in the hay and tried to sleep, but there was a queer pain that seemed to catch hold of his breath whenever he breathed down deep. It rained the next day, and they tramped disconsolately through village after village. They had oil-cloth covers for their baskets, but their own backs were soaked to the skin. Toward evening they came to the top of a hill, from which they could look directly down upon a large town lying comfortably in the crook of a river's elbow. The rain had stopped, and the belated sun, struggling through the clouds, made up for lost time by reflecting itself in every curve of the winding stream, in every puddle along the road, and in every pane of glass that faced the west. "That's a nobby hoss," said Ricks, pointing down the hill. "What's the matter with the feller?" A slight, delicate-looking young man was lying in the road, between the horse and the fence. As the boys came up he stirred and tried to rise. "He's off his nut," said Ricks, starting to pass on; but Sandy stopped. "Get a fall?" he asked. The strange boy shook his head. "I guess I fainted. I must have ridden too hard. I'll be all right in a minute." He leaned his head against a tree and closed his eyes. Sandy eyed him curiously, taking in all the details of his riding-costume down to the short whip with the silver mounting. "I say, Ricks," he called to his companion, who was inspecting the horse, "can't we do somethin' for him?" Ricks reluctantly produced the short bottle. "I'm all right," insisted the boy, "if you'll just give me a lift to the saddle." But his eager eyes followed the bottle, and before Ricks had returned it to his pocket he held out his hand. "I believe I will take a drink if you don't mind." He drained the contents and then handed a coin to Ricks. "Now, if you'll help me," continued the stranger. "There! Thank you very much." "Say, what town is this, anyway?" asked Ricks. "Clayton," said the boy, trying to keep his horse from backing. "Looks like somethin' was doin'," said Ricks. "Circus, I believe." "Then I don't blame your nag for wantin' to go back!" cried Sandy. "Come on, Ricks; let's take in the show!" Half-way down the hill he turned. "Haven't we seen that fellow before, Ricks?" "Not as I knows of. He looked kinder pale and shaky, but you bet yer life he knowed how to hit the bottle." "He was sick," urged Sandy. "An' thirsty," added Ricks, with a smile of superior wisdom. The circus seemed such a timely opportunity to do business that they decided to rent a stand that night and sell their wares on the street corner. Ricks went on into town to arrange matters, while Sandy stopped in a grocery to buy their supper. His interest in the show had been of short duration. He felt listless and tired, something seemed to be buzzing continually in his head, and he shivered in his damp clothes. In the grocery he sat on a barrel and leaned his head against the wall. "What you shivering about?" asked the fat woman behind the counter, as she tied up his small package. "I feel like me skeleton was doin' a jig inside of me," said Sandy through chattering teeth. "Looks to me like you got a chill," said the fat woman. "You wait here, and I'll go git you some hot coffee." She disappeared in the rear of the store, and soon returned with a small coffee-pot and a cup and saucer. Sandy drank two cups and a half, then he asked the price. "Price?" repeated the woman, indignantly. "I reckon you don't know which side of the Ohio River you're on!" Sandy made up in gratitude what she declined in cash, and started on his way. At the corner of Main street and the bridge he found Ricks, who had rented a stand and was already arranging his wares. Sandy knelt on the sidewalk and unpacked his basket. "Only three bars of soap and seventy-five microscopes!" he exclaimed ruefully. "Let's be layin' fine stress on the microscopes, Ricks." "You do the jawin', Sandy. I ain't much on givin' 'em the talk," said Ricks. "Chuck a jolly at 'em and keep 'em hangin' round." As dark came on, trade began. The three bars of soap were sold, and a purple necktie. Sandy saw that public taste must be guided in the proper direction. He stepped up on a box and began eloquently to enumerate the diverse uses of microscopes. At each end of the stand a flaring torch lighted up the scene. The light fell on the careless, laughing faces in front, on Ricks Wilson, black-browed and suspicious, in the rear, and it fell full on Sandy, who stood on high and harangued the crowd. It fell on his broad, straight shoulders and on his shining tumbled hair; but it was not the light of the torch that gave the brightness to his eyes and the flush to his cheek. His head was throbbing, but he felt a curious sense of elation. He felt that he could stand there and talk the rest of his life. He made the crowd listen, he made it laugh, he made it buy. He told stories and sang songs, he coaxed and persuaded, until only a few microscopes were left and the old cigar-box was heavy with silver. "Step right up and take a look at a fly's leg! Every one ought to have a microscope in his home. When you get hard up it will make a dime look like a dollar, and a dollar like a five-dollar gold piece. Step right up! I ain't kiddin' you. Five cents for two looks, and fifteen for the microscope." Suddenly he faltered. At the edge of the crowd he had recognized two faces. They were sensitive slender faces, strangely alike in feature and unlike in expression. The young horseman of the afternoon was impatiently pushing his way through the crowd, while close behind him was a dainty girl with brown eyes slightly lifted at the outer corners, who held back in laughing wonder to watch the scene. "Ricks," said Sandy, lowering his voice unsteadily, "is this Kentucky?" "Yep; we crossed the line to-day." "I can't talk no more," said Sandy. "You'll have to be doin' it. I'm sick." It was not only the fever that was burning in his veins, and making him bury his hot head in his hands and wish he had never been born. It was shame and humiliation, and all because of the look on the face of the girl at the edge of the crowd. He sat in the shadow of the big box and fought his fight. The coffee and the excitement no longer kept him up; he was faint, and his breath came short. Above him he heard Ricks's rasping voice still talking to the few customers who were left. He knew, without glancing up, just how Ricks looked when he said the words; he knew how his teeth pushed his lips back, and how his restless little eyes watched everything at once. A sudden fierce repulsion swept over him for peddling, for Ricks, for himself. "And to think," he whispered, with a sob in his throat, "that I can't ever speak to a girl like that!" Ricks, jubilant over the success of the evening, decided to follow the circus, which was to be in the next town on the following day. "It ain't fur," he said. "We kin push on to-night and be ready to open early in the morning." Sandy, miserable in body and spirit, mechanically obeyed instructions. His head was getting queerer all the time, and he could not remember whether it was day or night. About a mile from Clayton he sank down by the road. "Say, Ricks," he said abruptly; "I'm after quittin' peddlin'." "What you goin' to do?" "I'm goin' to school." If Sandy had announced his intention of putting on baby clothes and being wheeled in a perambulator, Ricks could not have been more astonished. "What?" he asked in genuine doubt. "'Cause I want to be the right sort," burst out Sandy, passionately. "This ain't the way you get to be the right sort." Ricks surveyed him contemptuously. "Look-a here, are you comin' along of me or not?" "I can't," said Sandy, weakly. Ricks shifted his pack, and with never a parting word or a backward look he left his business partner of three months lying by the roadside, and tramped away in the darkness. Sandy started up to follow him; he tried to call, but he had no strength. He lay with his face on the road and talked. He knew there was nobody to listen, but still he kept on, softly talking about microscopes and pink soap, crying out again and again that he couldn't ever speak to a girl like that. After a long while somebody came. At first he thought he must have gone back to the land behind the peat-flames, for it was a great black witch who bent over him, and he instinctively felt about in the grass for the tender, soft hand which he used to press against his cheek. He found instead the hand of the witch herself, and he drew back in terror. "Fer de Lawd sake, honey, what's de matter wif you?" asked a kindly voice. Sandy opened his eyes. A tall old negro woman bent over him, her head tied up in a turban, and a shawl about her shoulders. "Did you git runned over?" she asked, peering down at him anxiously. Sandy tried to explain, but it was all the old mixture of soap and microscopes and never being able to speak to her. He knew he was talking at random, but he could not say the things he thought. "Where'd you come from, boy?" "Curragh Chase, Limerick," murmured Sandy. "'Fore de Lawd, he's done been cunjered!" cried the old woman, aghast. "I'll git it outen of you, chile. You jus' come home wif yer Aunt Melvy; she'll take keer of you. Put yer arm on my shoulder; dat's right. Don't you mind where you gwine at. I got yer bundle. It ain't fur. Hit's dat little house a-hangin' on de side of de hill. Dey calls it 'Who'd 'a' Thought It,' 'ca'se you nebber would 'a' thought of puttin' a house dere. Dat's right; lean on yer mammy. I'll git dem old cunjers outen you." Thus encouraged and supported, Sandy stumbled on through the dark, up a hillside that seemed never to end, across a bridge, then into a tiny log cabin, where he dropped exhausted. Off and on during the night he knew that there was a fire in the room, and that strange things were happening to him. But it was all so queer and unnatural that he did not know where the dreams left off and the real began. He was vaguely conscious of his left foot being tied to the right bedpost, of a lock of his hair being cut off and burned on the hearth, and of a low monotonous chant that seemed to rise and fall with the flicker of the flames. And when he cried out with the pain in his sleep, a kindly black face bent over him, and the chant changed into a soothing murmur: "Nebber you min', sonny; Aunt Melvy gwine git dem cunjers out. She gwine stay by you. You hol' on to her han', an' go to sleep; she'll git dem old cunjers out." CHAPTER VI HOLLIS FARM Clayton was an easy-going, prosperous old town which, in the enthusiasm of youth, had started to climb the long hill to the north, but growing indolent with age, | himself | How many times the word 'himself' appears in the text? | 3 |
ventured a step nearer and continued his observations. As he did so, he made a discovery. The soft white of her cheek was gradually becoming pinker and pinker; the color which began under her lace collar stole up and up until it reached her eyes, which still gazed determinedly before her. Sandy admired it as a traveler admires a sunrise, and with as little idea of having caused it. The line of passengers moved slowly forward, and his heart sank. Suddenly his eyes fell upon the little hand-bag which she carried. On one end, in small white letters, was: "Ruth Nelson, Kentucky, U.S.A." He watched her until she was lost to view, then he turned eagerly back into the crowd. Elbowing his way forward, he seized Ricks by the arm. "Hi, there!" he cried; "I've changed me mind. I'm goin' with you to Kentucky!" So this impetuous knight errant enlisted under the will-o'-the-wisp love, and started joyously forth upon his quest. CHAPTER III THE CURSE OF WEALTH It is an oft-proved adage that for ten who can stand adversity there is but one who can stand prosperity. Sandy, alas! was no exception to any rule which went to prove the frailty of human nature. The sudden acquisition of ten dollars cast him into a whirlpool of temptation from which he made little effort to escape. "I ain't goin' on to-day," announced Ricks. "I'm goin' to lay in my goods for peddlin'. I reckon you kin come along of me." Sandy accepted a long and strong cigar, tilted his hat, and unconsciously caught Ricks's slouching gait as they went down the street. After all, it was rather pleasant to associate with sophistication. "We'll git on the outside of a little dinner," said Ricks; "and I'll mosey round in the stores awhile, then I'll take you to a show or two. It's a mighty good thing for you that you got me along." Sandy thought so too. He cheerfully stood treat for the rest of the day, and felt that it was small return for Ricks's condescension. "How much you got left?" asked Ricks, that night, as they stopped under a street light to take stock. Sandy held out a couple of dollars and a fifty-cent piece. "Enough to put on the eyes of two and a half dead men," he said as he curiously eyed the strange money. "One, two,--two and a half," counted Ricks. "Shillings?" asked Sandy, amazed. Ricks nodded. "And have I blowed all that to-day?" "What of it?" asked Ricks. "I seen a bloke onct what lit his cigar with a bill like the one you had!" "But the doctor said it was two pounds," insisted Sandy, incredulously. He did not realize the expense of a personally conducted tour of the Bowery. "Well, it's went," said Ricks, resignedly. "You can't count on settin' up biz with what's left." Sandy's brows clouded, and he shifted his position restlessly. "Now I ax yerself, Ricks, what'u'd you do?" he said. "Me? I don't give advice to nobody. But effen it was me I'd know mighty quick what to do." "What?" said Sandy, eagerly. "Buy a dawg." "A dog? I ain't goin' blind." "Lor'! but you're a softhorn," said Ricks, contemptuously. "I s'pose you'd count on leadin' him round by a pink ribbon." "Oh, you mean a fighter?" "Sure. My last dawg could do ever'thing in sight. She was so game she went after herself in a lookin'-glass and got kilt. Oh, they's money in dawgs, and I knows how to make 'em win ever' time." Sandy, tired as he was from the day's excitement, insisted upon going in search of one at once. He already had visions of becoming the proud owner of a canine champion that would put him immediately into the position of lighting his cigar with a two-pound note. The first three weeks of their experience on the road went far to realize their expectations. The bulldog, which had been bought in partnership, proved a conquering hero. Through the long summer days the boys tramped over the country, peddling their wares, and by night they conducted sundry unlawful encounters wherever an opponent could be found. Sandy enjoyed the peddling. It was astonishing what friendly sociability and confidential intimacy were established by the sale of blue suspenders and pink soap. He left a line of smiling testimonials in his wake. But if the days were proving satisfactory, so much could not be said of the nights. Even the phenomenal luck that followed his dog failed to keep up his enthusiasm. "You ain't a nachrul sport," complained Ricks. "That's your trouble. When the last fight was on, you set on the fence and listened at a' ole idiot scrapin' a fiddle down in the valley." Sandy made a feeble defense, but he knew in his soul it was so. Affairs reached a climax one night in an old barn on the outskirts of a town. A fight was about to begin when Sandy discovered Ricks judiciously administering a sedative to the enemy's dog. Then understanding dawned upon him, and his rage was elemental. With a valor that lacked the better part of discretion, he hurled himself through the crowd and fell upon Ricks. An hour later, bruised, bloody, and vanquished, he stumbled along through the dreary night. Hot with rage and defeat, utterly ignorant of his whereabouts, his one friend turned foe, he was indeed in sorry plight. He climbed over the fence and lay face downward in the long, cool grass, stretching his bruised and aching body along the ground. A gentle night wind rustled above him, and by and by a star peeped out, then another and another. Before he knew it, he was listening to the frogs and katydids, and wondering what they were talking about. He ceased to think about Ricks and his woes, and gave himself up to the delicious, drowsy peace that was all about him. For, child of nature that he was, he had turned to the only mother he knew. CHAPTER IV SIDE-TRACKED The next morning, at the nearest railroad station, an irate cattleman was trying to hire some one to take charge of a car of live stock which was on its way to a great exposition in a neighboring city. The man he had counted on had not appeared, and the train was about due. As he was turning away in desperation he felt a tug at his elbow. Looking around, he saw a queer figure with a countenance that resembled a first attempt at a charcoal sketch from life: one cheek was larger than the other, the mouth was sadly out of drawing, the eyes shone out from among the bruises like the sun from behind the clouds. But if the features were disfigured, the smile was none the less courageous. Sandy had found a friendly sympathizer at a neighboring farm-house, had been given a good breakfast, had made his toilet, and was ready for the next round in the fight of life. "I'll be doin' yer job, sir, whatever it is," he said pleasantly. The man eyed him with misgiving, but his need was urgent. "All you have to do is to stay in the car and look after the cattle. My man will meet you when you reach the city. Do you think you can do it?" "Just keep company with the cows?" cried Sandy. "Sure and I can!" So the bargain was struck, and that night found him in the great city with a dollar in his pocket and a promise of work in the morning. Tired and sore from the experiences of the night before, he sought a cheap lodging-house near by. A hook-nosed woman, carrying a smoking lamp, conducted him to a room under the eaves. It was small and suffocating. He involuntarily lifted his hands and touched the ceiling. "It's like a boilin' potato I feel," he said; "and the pot's so little and the lid so tight!" He went to the window, and taking out the nail that held down the sash, pushed it up. Below him lay the great, bustling city, cabs and cars in constant motion, long lines of blazing lights marking the thoroughfares, the thunder of trains in the big station, and above and below and through it all a dull monotonous roar, like the faraway unceasing cry of a hungry beast. He sank on his knees by the window, and a restless, nervous look came into his eyes. "It presses in, too," he thought. "It's all crowdin' over me. I'm just me by myself, all alone." A tear made a white course down his grimy cheek, then another and another. He brushed them impatiently away with the cap he still held in his hand. Rising abruptly, he turned away from the window, and the hot air of the room again smote him. The smoking lamp had blackened the chimney, and as he bent to turn it down, he caught his reflection in a small mirror over the table. What the bruises and swelling had left undone the cheap mirror completed. He started back. Was that the boy he knew as himself? Was that Sandy Kilday who had come to America to seek his fortune? He stared in a sort of fascinated horror at that other boy in the mirror. Before he had been afraid to be by himself, now he was afraid of himself. He seized his cap, and blowing out the lamp, plunged down four flights of steep narrow steps and out into the street. A number of people were crowding into a street-car marked "Exposition." Sandy, ever a straw in the current, joined them. Once more down among his fellow-men, he began to feel more comfortable. He cheerfully paid his entrance fee with one of the two silver coins in his pocket. The first building he entered was the art gallery, and the first picture that caught his eye held him spellbound. He sat before it all the evening with fascinated eyes, devouring every detail and oblivious to the curious interest he was attracting; for the huge canvas represented the Knights of the Round Table, and he had at last found friends. All the way back he thought about the picture; it was not until he reached his room that the former loneliness returned. But even then it was not for long. A pair of yellow eyes peered around the window-sill, and a plaintive "meow" begged for admittance. It was plainly Providence that guided that thin and ill-treated kitten to Sandy's window. The welcome it received must have completely restored its shaken faith in human nature. Tired as he was, Sandy went out and bought some milk. He wanted to establish a firm friendship; for if he was to stay in this lonely city, he must have something to love, if only a prodigal kitten of doubtful pedigree. During the long, hot days that followed Sandy worked faithfully at the depot. The regular hours and confinement seemed doubly irksome after the bohemian life on the road. The Exposition was his salvation. No sacrifice seemed too great to enable him to get beyond that magic gate. For the "Knights of the Round Table" was but the beginning of miles and miles of wonderful pictures. He even bought a catalogue, and, prompted by a natural curiosity for anything that interested him, learned the names of the artists he liked best, and the bits of biography attached to each. He would recite these to the yellow kitten when he got back to his little hot-box of a room. One night the art gallery was closed, and he went into another big building where a crowd of people were seated. At one end of it was a great pipe-organ, and after a while some one began to play. With his cap tightly grasped in both hands, he tiptoed down the center aisle and stood breathlessly drinking in the wonderful tones that seemed to be coming from his own heart. "Get out of the way, boy," said an usher. "You are blocking the aisle." A queer-appearing lady who looked like a man touched his elbow. "Here's a seat," she said in a deep voice. "Thank you, sir," said Sandy, absently. He scarcely knew whether he was sitting or standing. He only wanted to be let alone, so that he could listen to those strange, beautiful sounds that made a shiver of joy go down his back. Art had had her day; it was Music's turn. When the last number had been played, he turned to the queer lady: "Do they do it every night?" She smiled at his enthusiasm: "Wednesdays and Saturdays." "Say," said Sandy, confidentially, "if you come first do you save me a seat, and I'll do the same by you." From that time on he decided to be a musician, and he lived on two scanty meals a day in order to attend the concerts. But this exalted scheme of high thinking and plain living soon became irksome. One day, when his loneliness weighed most heavily upon him, he was sent with a message out to the switch-station. As he tramped back along the track he spied a familiar figure ahead of him. There was no mistaking that short, slouching body with the peddler's pack strapped on its back. With a cry of joy, Sandy bounded after Ricks Wilson. He actually hugged him in his joy to be once more with some one he knew. Ricks glanced uneasily at the scar above his eye. Sandy clapped his hand over it and laughed. "It's all right, Ricks; a miss is as good as a mile. I ain't mad any more. It's straight home with me you are goin'; and if we can get the two feet of you into me bit of a room, we'll have a dinner that's fit for a king." On the way they laid in a supply of provisions, Sandy even going to the expense of a bottle of beer for Ricks. The yellow kitten arched her back and showed general signs of hostility when the stranger was introduced. But her unfriendly demonstrations were ignored. Ricks was the honored guest, and Sandy extended to him the full hospitality of the establishment. "Put your pack on the floor and yerself in the chair, and I'll get ye filled up in the blink of an eyelash. Don't be mindin' the cat, Ricks. She's just lettin' on she don't take to you. She give me the wink on the sly." Ricks, expanding under the influence of food and drink, became eloquent. He recounted courageous adventures of the past, and outlined marvelous schemes for the future, by which he was going to make a short cut to fame and glory. When it was time for him to go, Sandy heaved a sigh of regret. For two hours he had been beguiled by Ricks's romances, and now he had to go back to the humdrum duties at the depot, and receive a sound rating for his belated appearance. "Which way might you be goin', Ricks?" he asked wistfully. "Same place I started fer," said Ricks. "Kentucky." The will-o'-the-wisp, which had been hiding his light, suddenly swung it full in the eyes of Sandy. Once more he saw the little maid of his dreams, and once more he threw discretion to the winds and followed the vision. Hastily collecting his few possessions, he rolled them into a bundle, and slipping the surprised kitten into his pocket, he gladly followed Ricks once more out into the broad green meadows, along the white and shining roads that lead over the hills to Kentucky. CHAPTER V SANDY RETIRES FROM BUSINESS "This here is too blame slow fer me," said Ricks, one chilly night in late September, as he and Sandy huddled against a haystack and settled up their weekly accounts. "Fifty-five cents! Now ain't that a' o'nery dab? Here's a quarter fer you and thirty cents fer me; that's as even as you kin split it." "It's the microscopes that'll be sellin'," said Sandy, hopefully, as he pulled his coat collar about his ears and shivered. "The man as sold 'em to me said they was a great bargain entirely. He thought there was money in 'em." "For him," said Ricks, contemptuously. "It's like the man what gulled us on the penknives. I lay to git even with him, all right." "But he give us the night's lodgin' and some breakfast," said Sandy. Ricks took a long drink from a short bottle, then holding it before him, he said impressively: "A feller could do me ninety-nine good turns, and if he done me one bad one it would wipe 'em all out. I got to git even with anybody what does me dirty, if it takes me all my life." "But don't you forget to remember?" "Not me. I ain't that kind." Sandy leaned wearily against the haystack and tried to shelter himself from the wind. A continued diet of bread and water had made him sensitive to the changes in the weather. "This here grub is kinder hard on yer head-rails," said Ricks, trying to bite through a piece of stale bread. A baker had let them have three loaves for a dime because they were old and hard. Sandy cast a longing look at Ricks's short bottle. It seemed to remedy so many ills, heat or cold, thirst or hunger. But the strict principles applied during his tender years made him hesitate. "I wish we hadn't lost the kitten," he said, feeling the need of a more cheerful companion. "I'm a-goin' to git another dawg," announced Ricks. "I'm sick of this here doin's." "Ain't we goin' to be turfmen?" asked Sandy, who had listened by the hour to thrilling accounts of life on the track, and had accepted Ricks's ambition as his own. "Not on twenty cents per week," growled Ricks. Sandy's heart sank; he knew what a new dog meant. He burrowed in the hay and tried to sleep, but there was a queer pain that seemed to catch hold of his breath whenever he breathed down deep. It rained the next day, and they tramped disconsolately through village after village. They had oil-cloth covers for their baskets, but their own backs were soaked to the skin. Toward evening they came to the top of a hill, from which they could look directly down upon a large town lying comfortably in the crook of a river's elbow. The rain had stopped, and the belated sun, struggling through the clouds, made up for lost time by reflecting itself in every curve of the winding stream, in every puddle along the road, and in every pane of glass that faced the west. "That's a nobby hoss," said Ricks, pointing down the hill. "What's the matter with the feller?" A slight, delicate-looking young man was lying in the road, between the horse and the fence. As the boys came up he stirred and tried to rise. "He's off his nut," said Ricks, starting to pass on; but Sandy stopped. "Get a fall?" he asked. The strange boy shook his head. "I guess I fainted. I must have ridden too hard. I'll be all right in a minute." He leaned his head against a tree and closed his eyes. Sandy eyed him curiously, taking in all the details of his riding-costume down to the short whip with the silver mounting. "I say, Ricks," he called to his companion, who was inspecting the horse, "can't we do somethin' for him?" Ricks reluctantly produced the short bottle. "I'm all right," insisted the boy, "if you'll just give me a lift to the saddle." But his eager eyes followed the bottle, and before Ricks had returned it to his pocket he held out his hand. "I believe I will take a drink if you don't mind." He drained the contents and then handed a coin to Ricks. "Now, if you'll help me," continued the stranger. "There! Thank you very much." "Say, what town is this, anyway?" asked Ricks. "Clayton," said the boy, trying to keep his horse from backing. "Looks like somethin' was doin'," said Ricks. "Circus, I believe." "Then I don't blame your nag for wantin' to go back!" cried Sandy. "Come on, Ricks; let's take in the show!" Half-way down the hill he turned. "Haven't we seen that fellow before, Ricks?" "Not as I knows of. He looked kinder pale and shaky, but you bet yer life he knowed how to hit the bottle." "He was sick," urged Sandy. "An' thirsty," added Ricks, with a smile of superior wisdom. The circus seemed such a timely opportunity to do business that they decided to rent a stand that night and sell their wares on the street corner. Ricks went on into town to arrange matters, while Sandy stopped in a grocery to buy their supper. His interest in the show had been of short duration. He felt listless and tired, something seemed to be buzzing continually in his head, and he shivered in his damp clothes. In the grocery he sat on a barrel and leaned his head against the wall. "What you shivering about?" asked the fat woman behind the counter, as she tied up his small package. "I feel like me skeleton was doin' a jig inside of me," said Sandy through chattering teeth. "Looks to me like you got a chill," said the fat woman. "You wait here, and I'll go git you some hot coffee." She disappeared in the rear of the store, and soon returned with a small coffee-pot and a cup and saucer. Sandy drank two cups and a half, then he asked the price. "Price?" repeated the woman, indignantly. "I reckon you don't know which side of the Ohio River you're on!" Sandy made up in gratitude what she declined in cash, and started on his way. At the corner of Main street and the bridge he found Ricks, who had rented a stand and was already arranging his wares. Sandy knelt on the sidewalk and unpacked his basket. "Only three bars of soap and seventy-five microscopes!" he exclaimed ruefully. "Let's be layin' fine stress on the microscopes, Ricks." "You do the jawin', Sandy. I ain't much on givin' 'em the talk," said Ricks. "Chuck a jolly at 'em and keep 'em hangin' round." As dark came on, trade began. The three bars of soap were sold, and a purple necktie. Sandy saw that public taste must be guided in the proper direction. He stepped up on a box and began eloquently to enumerate the diverse uses of microscopes. At each end of the stand a flaring torch lighted up the scene. The light fell on the careless, laughing faces in front, on Ricks Wilson, black-browed and suspicious, in the rear, and it fell full on Sandy, who stood on high and harangued the crowd. It fell on his broad, straight shoulders and on his shining tumbled hair; but it was not the light of the torch that gave the brightness to his eyes and the flush to his cheek. His head was throbbing, but he felt a curious sense of elation. He felt that he could stand there and talk the rest of his life. He made the crowd listen, he made it laugh, he made it buy. He told stories and sang songs, he coaxed and persuaded, until only a few microscopes were left and the old cigar-box was heavy with silver. "Step right up and take a look at a fly's leg! Every one ought to have a microscope in his home. When you get hard up it will make a dime look like a dollar, and a dollar like a five-dollar gold piece. Step right up! I ain't kiddin' you. Five cents for two looks, and fifteen for the microscope." Suddenly he faltered. At the edge of the crowd he had recognized two faces. They were sensitive slender faces, strangely alike in feature and unlike in expression. The young horseman of the afternoon was impatiently pushing his way through the crowd, while close behind him was a dainty girl with brown eyes slightly lifted at the outer corners, who held back in laughing wonder to watch the scene. "Ricks," said Sandy, lowering his voice unsteadily, "is this Kentucky?" "Yep; we crossed the line to-day." "I can't talk no more," said Sandy. "You'll have to be doin' it. I'm sick." It was not only the fever that was burning in his veins, and making him bury his hot head in his hands and wish he had never been born. It was shame and humiliation, and all because of the look on the face of the girl at the edge of the crowd. He sat in the shadow of the big box and fought his fight. The coffee and the excitement no longer kept him up; he was faint, and his breath came short. Above him he heard Ricks's rasping voice still talking to the few customers who were left. He knew, without glancing up, just how Ricks looked when he said the words; he knew how his teeth pushed his lips back, and how his restless little eyes watched everything at once. A sudden fierce repulsion swept over him for peddling, for Ricks, for himself. "And to think," he whispered, with a sob in his throat, "that I can't ever speak to a girl like that!" Ricks, jubilant over the success of the evening, decided to follow the circus, which was to be in the next town on the following day. "It ain't fur," he said. "We kin push on to-night and be ready to open early in the morning." Sandy, miserable in body and spirit, mechanically obeyed instructions. His head was getting queerer all the time, and he could not remember whether it was day or night. About a mile from Clayton he sank down by the road. "Say, Ricks," he said abruptly; "I'm after quittin' peddlin'." "What you goin' to do?" "I'm goin' to school." If Sandy had announced his intention of putting on baby clothes and being wheeled in a perambulator, Ricks could not have been more astonished. "What?" he asked in genuine doubt. "'Cause I want to be the right sort," burst out Sandy, passionately. "This ain't the way you get to be the right sort." Ricks surveyed him contemptuously. "Look-a here, are you comin' along of me or not?" "I can't," said Sandy, weakly. Ricks shifted his pack, and with never a parting word or a backward look he left his business partner of three months lying by the roadside, and tramped away in the darkness. Sandy started up to follow him; he tried to call, but he had no strength. He lay with his face on the road and talked. He knew there was nobody to listen, but still he kept on, softly talking about microscopes and pink soap, crying out again and again that he couldn't ever speak to a girl like that. After a long while somebody came. At first he thought he must have gone back to the land behind the peat-flames, for it was a great black witch who bent over him, and he instinctively felt about in the grass for the tender, soft hand which he used to press against his cheek. He found instead the hand of the witch herself, and he drew back in terror. "Fer de Lawd sake, honey, what's de matter wif you?" asked a kindly voice. Sandy opened his eyes. A tall old negro woman bent over him, her head tied up in a turban, and a shawl about her shoulders. "Did you git runned over?" she asked, peering down at him anxiously. Sandy tried to explain, but it was all the old mixture of soap and microscopes and never being able to speak to her. He knew he was talking at random, but he could not say the things he thought. "Where'd you come from, boy?" "Curragh Chase, Limerick," murmured Sandy. "'Fore de Lawd, he's done been cunjered!" cried the old woman, aghast. "I'll git it outen of you, chile. You jus' come home wif yer Aunt Melvy; she'll take keer of you. Put yer arm on my shoulder; dat's right. Don't you mind where you gwine at. I got yer bundle. It ain't fur. Hit's dat little house a-hangin' on de side of de hill. Dey calls it 'Who'd 'a' Thought It,' 'ca'se you nebber would 'a' thought of puttin' a house dere. Dat's right; lean on yer mammy. I'll git dem old cunjers outen you." Thus encouraged and supported, Sandy stumbled on through the dark, up a hillside that seemed never to end, across a bridge, then into a tiny log cabin, where he dropped exhausted. Off and on during the night he knew that there was a fire in the room, and that strange things were happening to him. But it was all so queer and unnatural that he did not know where the dreams left off and the real began. He was vaguely conscious of his left foot being tied to the right bedpost, of a lock of his hair being cut off and burned on the hearth, and of a low monotonous chant that seemed to rise and fall with the flicker of the flames. And when he cried out with the pain in his sleep, a kindly black face bent over him, and the chant changed into a soothing murmur: "Nebber you min', sonny; Aunt Melvy gwine git dem cunjers out. She gwine stay by you. You hol' on to her han', an' go to sleep; she'll git dem old cunjers out." CHAPTER VI HOLLIS FARM Clayton was an easy-going, prosperous old town which, in the enthusiasm of youth, had started to climb the long hill to the north, but growing indolent with age, | bought | How many times the word 'bought' appears in the text? | 3 |
ventured a step nearer and continued his observations. As he did so, he made a discovery. The soft white of her cheek was gradually becoming pinker and pinker; the color which began under her lace collar stole up and up until it reached her eyes, which still gazed determinedly before her. Sandy admired it as a traveler admires a sunrise, and with as little idea of having caused it. The line of passengers moved slowly forward, and his heart sank. Suddenly his eyes fell upon the little hand-bag which she carried. On one end, in small white letters, was: "Ruth Nelson, Kentucky, U.S.A." He watched her until she was lost to view, then he turned eagerly back into the crowd. Elbowing his way forward, he seized Ricks by the arm. "Hi, there!" he cried; "I've changed me mind. I'm goin' with you to Kentucky!" So this impetuous knight errant enlisted under the will-o'-the-wisp love, and started joyously forth upon his quest. CHAPTER III THE CURSE OF WEALTH It is an oft-proved adage that for ten who can stand adversity there is but one who can stand prosperity. Sandy, alas! was no exception to any rule which went to prove the frailty of human nature. The sudden acquisition of ten dollars cast him into a whirlpool of temptation from which he made little effort to escape. "I ain't goin' on to-day," announced Ricks. "I'm goin' to lay in my goods for peddlin'. I reckon you kin come along of me." Sandy accepted a long and strong cigar, tilted his hat, and unconsciously caught Ricks's slouching gait as they went down the street. After all, it was rather pleasant to associate with sophistication. "We'll git on the outside of a little dinner," said Ricks; "and I'll mosey round in the stores awhile, then I'll take you to a show or two. It's a mighty good thing for you that you got me along." Sandy thought so too. He cheerfully stood treat for the rest of the day, and felt that it was small return for Ricks's condescension. "How much you got left?" asked Ricks, that night, as they stopped under a street light to take stock. Sandy held out a couple of dollars and a fifty-cent piece. "Enough to put on the eyes of two and a half dead men," he said as he curiously eyed the strange money. "One, two,--two and a half," counted Ricks. "Shillings?" asked Sandy, amazed. Ricks nodded. "And have I blowed all that to-day?" "What of it?" asked Ricks. "I seen a bloke onct what lit his cigar with a bill like the one you had!" "But the doctor said it was two pounds," insisted Sandy, incredulously. He did not realize the expense of a personally conducted tour of the Bowery. "Well, it's went," said Ricks, resignedly. "You can't count on settin' up biz with what's left." Sandy's brows clouded, and he shifted his position restlessly. "Now I ax yerself, Ricks, what'u'd you do?" he said. "Me? I don't give advice to nobody. But effen it was me I'd know mighty quick what to do." "What?" said Sandy, eagerly. "Buy a dawg." "A dog? I ain't goin' blind." "Lor'! but you're a softhorn," said Ricks, contemptuously. "I s'pose you'd count on leadin' him round by a pink ribbon." "Oh, you mean a fighter?" "Sure. My last dawg could do ever'thing in sight. She was so game she went after herself in a lookin'-glass and got kilt. Oh, they's money in dawgs, and I knows how to make 'em win ever' time." Sandy, tired as he was from the day's excitement, insisted upon going in search of one at once. He already had visions of becoming the proud owner of a canine champion that would put him immediately into the position of lighting his cigar with a two-pound note. The first three weeks of their experience on the road went far to realize their expectations. The bulldog, which had been bought in partnership, proved a conquering hero. Through the long summer days the boys tramped over the country, peddling their wares, and by night they conducted sundry unlawful encounters wherever an opponent could be found. Sandy enjoyed the peddling. It was astonishing what friendly sociability and confidential intimacy were established by the sale of blue suspenders and pink soap. He left a line of smiling testimonials in his wake. But if the days were proving satisfactory, so much could not be said of the nights. Even the phenomenal luck that followed his dog failed to keep up his enthusiasm. "You ain't a nachrul sport," complained Ricks. "That's your trouble. When the last fight was on, you set on the fence and listened at a' ole idiot scrapin' a fiddle down in the valley." Sandy made a feeble defense, but he knew in his soul it was so. Affairs reached a climax one night in an old barn on the outskirts of a town. A fight was about to begin when Sandy discovered Ricks judiciously administering a sedative to the enemy's dog. Then understanding dawned upon him, and his rage was elemental. With a valor that lacked the better part of discretion, he hurled himself through the crowd and fell upon Ricks. An hour later, bruised, bloody, and vanquished, he stumbled along through the dreary night. Hot with rage and defeat, utterly ignorant of his whereabouts, his one friend turned foe, he was indeed in sorry plight. He climbed over the fence and lay face downward in the long, cool grass, stretching his bruised and aching body along the ground. A gentle night wind rustled above him, and by and by a star peeped out, then another and another. Before he knew it, he was listening to the frogs and katydids, and wondering what they were talking about. He ceased to think about Ricks and his woes, and gave himself up to the delicious, drowsy peace that was all about him. For, child of nature that he was, he had turned to the only mother he knew. CHAPTER IV SIDE-TRACKED The next morning, at the nearest railroad station, an irate cattleman was trying to hire some one to take charge of a car of live stock which was on its way to a great exposition in a neighboring city. The man he had counted on had not appeared, and the train was about due. As he was turning away in desperation he felt a tug at his elbow. Looking around, he saw a queer figure with a countenance that resembled a first attempt at a charcoal sketch from life: one cheek was larger than the other, the mouth was sadly out of drawing, the eyes shone out from among the bruises like the sun from behind the clouds. But if the features were disfigured, the smile was none the less courageous. Sandy had found a friendly sympathizer at a neighboring farm-house, had been given a good breakfast, had made his toilet, and was ready for the next round in the fight of life. "I'll be doin' yer job, sir, whatever it is," he said pleasantly. The man eyed him with misgiving, but his need was urgent. "All you have to do is to stay in the car and look after the cattle. My man will meet you when you reach the city. Do you think you can do it?" "Just keep company with the cows?" cried Sandy. "Sure and I can!" So the bargain was struck, and that night found him in the great city with a dollar in his pocket and a promise of work in the morning. Tired and sore from the experiences of the night before, he sought a cheap lodging-house near by. A hook-nosed woman, carrying a smoking lamp, conducted him to a room under the eaves. It was small and suffocating. He involuntarily lifted his hands and touched the ceiling. "It's like a boilin' potato I feel," he said; "and the pot's so little and the lid so tight!" He went to the window, and taking out the nail that held down the sash, pushed it up. Below him lay the great, bustling city, cabs and cars in constant motion, long lines of blazing lights marking the thoroughfares, the thunder of trains in the big station, and above and below and through it all a dull monotonous roar, like the faraway unceasing cry of a hungry beast. He sank on his knees by the window, and a restless, nervous look came into his eyes. "It presses in, too," he thought. "It's all crowdin' over me. I'm just me by myself, all alone." A tear made a white course down his grimy cheek, then another and another. He brushed them impatiently away with the cap he still held in his hand. Rising abruptly, he turned away from the window, and the hot air of the room again smote him. The smoking lamp had blackened the chimney, and as he bent to turn it down, he caught his reflection in a small mirror over the table. What the bruises and swelling had left undone the cheap mirror completed. He started back. Was that the boy he knew as himself? Was that Sandy Kilday who had come to America to seek his fortune? He stared in a sort of fascinated horror at that other boy in the mirror. Before he had been afraid to be by himself, now he was afraid of himself. He seized his cap, and blowing out the lamp, plunged down four flights of steep narrow steps and out into the street. A number of people were crowding into a street-car marked "Exposition." Sandy, ever a straw in the current, joined them. Once more down among his fellow-men, he began to feel more comfortable. He cheerfully paid his entrance fee with one of the two silver coins in his pocket. The first building he entered was the art gallery, and the first picture that caught his eye held him spellbound. He sat before it all the evening with fascinated eyes, devouring every detail and oblivious to the curious interest he was attracting; for the huge canvas represented the Knights of the Round Table, and he had at last found friends. All the way back he thought about the picture; it was not until he reached his room that the former loneliness returned. But even then it was not for long. A pair of yellow eyes peered around the window-sill, and a plaintive "meow" begged for admittance. It was plainly Providence that guided that thin and ill-treated kitten to Sandy's window. The welcome it received must have completely restored its shaken faith in human nature. Tired as he was, Sandy went out and bought some milk. He wanted to establish a firm friendship; for if he was to stay in this lonely city, he must have something to love, if only a prodigal kitten of doubtful pedigree. During the long, hot days that followed Sandy worked faithfully at the depot. The regular hours and confinement seemed doubly irksome after the bohemian life on the road. The Exposition was his salvation. No sacrifice seemed too great to enable him to get beyond that magic gate. For the "Knights of the Round Table" was but the beginning of miles and miles of wonderful pictures. He even bought a catalogue, and, prompted by a natural curiosity for anything that interested him, learned the names of the artists he liked best, and the bits of biography attached to each. He would recite these to the yellow kitten when he got back to his little hot-box of a room. One night the art gallery was closed, and he went into another big building where a crowd of people were seated. At one end of it was a great pipe-organ, and after a while some one began to play. With his cap tightly grasped in both hands, he tiptoed down the center aisle and stood breathlessly drinking in the wonderful tones that seemed to be coming from his own heart. "Get out of the way, boy," said an usher. "You are blocking the aisle." A queer-appearing lady who looked like a man touched his elbow. "Here's a seat," she said in a deep voice. "Thank you, sir," said Sandy, absently. He scarcely knew whether he was sitting or standing. He only wanted to be let alone, so that he could listen to those strange, beautiful sounds that made a shiver of joy go down his back. Art had had her day; it was Music's turn. When the last number had been played, he turned to the queer lady: "Do they do it every night?" She smiled at his enthusiasm: "Wednesdays and Saturdays." "Say," said Sandy, confidentially, "if you come first do you save me a seat, and I'll do the same by you." From that time on he decided to be a musician, and he lived on two scanty meals a day in order to attend the concerts. But this exalted scheme of high thinking and plain living soon became irksome. One day, when his loneliness weighed most heavily upon him, he was sent with a message out to the switch-station. As he tramped back along the track he spied a familiar figure ahead of him. There was no mistaking that short, slouching body with the peddler's pack strapped on its back. With a cry of joy, Sandy bounded after Ricks Wilson. He actually hugged him in his joy to be once more with some one he knew. Ricks glanced uneasily at the scar above his eye. Sandy clapped his hand over it and laughed. "It's all right, Ricks; a miss is as good as a mile. I ain't mad any more. It's straight home with me you are goin'; and if we can get the two feet of you into me bit of a room, we'll have a dinner that's fit for a king." On the way they laid in a supply of provisions, Sandy even going to the expense of a bottle of beer for Ricks. The yellow kitten arched her back and showed general signs of hostility when the stranger was introduced. But her unfriendly demonstrations were ignored. Ricks was the honored guest, and Sandy extended to him the full hospitality of the establishment. "Put your pack on the floor and yerself in the chair, and I'll get ye filled up in the blink of an eyelash. Don't be mindin' the cat, Ricks. She's just lettin' on she don't take to you. She give me the wink on the sly." Ricks, expanding under the influence of food and drink, became eloquent. He recounted courageous adventures of the past, and outlined marvelous schemes for the future, by which he was going to make a short cut to fame and glory. When it was time for him to go, Sandy heaved a sigh of regret. For two hours he had been beguiled by Ricks's romances, and now he had to go back to the humdrum duties at the depot, and receive a sound rating for his belated appearance. "Which way might you be goin', Ricks?" he asked wistfully. "Same place I started fer," said Ricks. "Kentucky." The will-o'-the-wisp, which had been hiding his light, suddenly swung it full in the eyes of Sandy. Once more he saw the little maid of his dreams, and once more he threw discretion to the winds and followed the vision. Hastily collecting his few possessions, he rolled them into a bundle, and slipping the surprised kitten into his pocket, he gladly followed Ricks once more out into the broad green meadows, along the white and shining roads that lead over the hills to Kentucky. CHAPTER V SANDY RETIRES FROM BUSINESS "This here is too blame slow fer me," said Ricks, one chilly night in late September, as he and Sandy huddled against a haystack and settled up their weekly accounts. "Fifty-five cents! Now ain't that a' o'nery dab? Here's a quarter fer you and thirty cents fer me; that's as even as you kin split it." "It's the microscopes that'll be sellin'," said Sandy, hopefully, as he pulled his coat collar about his ears and shivered. "The man as sold 'em to me said they was a great bargain entirely. He thought there was money in 'em." "For him," said Ricks, contemptuously. "It's like the man what gulled us on the penknives. I lay to git even with him, all right." "But he give us the night's lodgin' and some breakfast," said Sandy. Ricks took a long drink from a short bottle, then holding it before him, he said impressively: "A feller could do me ninety-nine good turns, and if he done me one bad one it would wipe 'em all out. I got to git even with anybody what does me dirty, if it takes me all my life." "But don't you forget to remember?" "Not me. I ain't that kind." Sandy leaned wearily against the haystack and tried to shelter himself from the wind. A continued diet of bread and water had made him sensitive to the changes in the weather. "This here grub is kinder hard on yer head-rails," said Ricks, trying to bite through a piece of stale bread. A baker had let them have three loaves for a dime because they were old and hard. Sandy cast a longing look at Ricks's short bottle. It seemed to remedy so many ills, heat or cold, thirst or hunger. But the strict principles applied during his tender years made him hesitate. "I wish we hadn't lost the kitten," he said, feeling the need of a more cheerful companion. "I'm a-goin' to git another dawg," announced Ricks. "I'm sick of this here doin's." "Ain't we goin' to be turfmen?" asked Sandy, who had listened by the hour to thrilling accounts of life on the track, and had accepted Ricks's ambition as his own. "Not on twenty cents per week," growled Ricks. Sandy's heart sank; he knew what a new dog meant. He burrowed in the hay and tried to sleep, but there was a queer pain that seemed to catch hold of his breath whenever he breathed down deep. It rained the next day, and they tramped disconsolately through village after village. They had oil-cloth covers for their baskets, but their own backs were soaked to the skin. Toward evening they came to the top of a hill, from which they could look directly down upon a large town lying comfortably in the crook of a river's elbow. The rain had stopped, and the belated sun, struggling through the clouds, made up for lost time by reflecting itself in every curve of the winding stream, in every puddle along the road, and in every pane of glass that faced the west. "That's a nobby hoss," said Ricks, pointing down the hill. "What's the matter with the feller?" A slight, delicate-looking young man was lying in the road, between the horse and the fence. As the boys came up he stirred and tried to rise. "He's off his nut," said Ricks, starting to pass on; but Sandy stopped. "Get a fall?" he asked. The strange boy shook his head. "I guess I fainted. I must have ridden too hard. I'll be all right in a minute." He leaned his head against a tree and closed his eyes. Sandy eyed him curiously, taking in all the details of his riding-costume down to the short whip with the silver mounting. "I say, Ricks," he called to his companion, who was inspecting the horse, "can't we do somethin' for him?" Ricks reluctantly produced the short bottle. "I'm all right," insisted the boy, "if you'll just give me a lift to the saddle." But his eager eyes followed the bottle, and before Ricks had returned it to his pocket he held out his hand. "I believe I will take a drink if you don't mind." He drained the contents and then handed a coin to Ricks. "Now, if you'll help me," continued the stranger. "There! Thank you very much." "Say, what town is this, anyway?" asked Ricks. "Clayton," said the boy, trying to keep his horse from backing. "Looks like somethin' was doin'," said Ricks. "Circus, I believe." "Then I don't blame your nag for wantin' to go back!" cried Sandy. "Come on, Ricks; let's take in the show!" Half-way down the hill he turned. "Haven't we seen that fellow before, Ricks?" "Not as I knows of. He looked kinder pale and shaky, but you bet yer life he knowed how to hit the bottle." "He was sick," urged Sandy. "An' thirsty," added Ricks, with a smile of superior wisdom. The circus seemed such a timely opportunity to do business that they decided to rent a stand that night and sell their wares on the street corner. Ricks went on into town to arrange matters, while Sandy stopped in a grocery to buy their supper. His interest in the show had been of short duration. He felt listless and tired, something seemed to be buzzing continually in his head, and he shivered in his damp clothes. In the grocery he sat on a barrel and leaned his head against the wall. "What you shivering about?" asked the fat woman behind the counter, as she tied up his small package. "I feel like me skeleton was doin' a jig inside of me," said Sandy through chattering teeth. "Looks to me like you got a chill," said the fat woman. "You wait here, and I'll go git you some hot coffee." She disappeared in the rear of the store, and soon returned with a small coffee-pot and a cup and saucer. Sandy drank two cups and a half, then he asked the price. "Price?" repeated the woman, indignantly. "I reckon you don't know which side of the Ohio River you're on!" Sandy made up in gratitude what she declined in cash, and started on his way. At the corner of Main street and the bridge he found Ricks, who had rented a stand and was already arranging his wares. Sandy knelt on the sidewalk and unpacked his basket. "Only three bars of soap and seventy-five microscopes!" he exclaimed ruefully. "Let's be layin' fine stress on the microscopes, Ricks." "You do the jawin', Sandy. I ain't much on givin' 'em the talk," said Ricks. "Chuck a jolly at 'em and keep 'em hangin' round." As dark came on, trade began. The three bars of soap were sold, and a purple necktie. Sandy saw that public taste must be guided in the proper direction. He stepped up on a box and began eloquently to enumerate the diverse uses of microscopes. At each end of the stand a flaring torch lighted up the scene. The light fell on the careless, laughing faces in front, on Ricks Wilson, black-browed and suspicious, in the rear, and it fell full on Sandy, who stood on high and harangued the crowd. It fell on his broad, straight shoulders and on his shining tumbled hair; but it was not the light of the torch that gave the brightness to his eyes and the flush to his cheek. His head was throbbing, but he felt a curious sense of elation. He felt that he could stand there and talk the rest of his life. He made the crowd listen, he made it laugh, he made it buy. He told stories and sang songs, he coaxed and persuaded, until only a few microscopes were left and the old cigar-box was heavy with silver. "Step right up and take a look at a fly's leg! Every one ought to have a microscope in his home. When you get hard up it will make a dime look like a dollar, and a dollar like a five-dollar gold piece. Step right up! I ain't kiddin' you. Five cents for two looks, and fifteen for the microscope." Suddenly he faltered. At the edge of the crowd he had recognized two faces. They were sensitive slender faces, strangely alike in feature and unlike in expression. The young horseman of the afternoon was impatiently pushing his way through the crowd, while close behind him was a dainty girl with brown eyes slightly lifted at the outer corners, who held back in laughing wonder to watch the scene. "Ricks," said Sandy, lowering his voice unsteadily, "is this Kentucky?" "Yep; we crossed the line to-day." "I can't talk no more," said Sandy. "You'll have to be doin' it. I'm sick." It was not only the fever that was burning in his veins, and making him bury his hot head in his hands and wish he had never been born. It was shame and humiliation, and all because of the look on the face of the girl at the edge of the crowd. He sat in the shadow of the big box and fought his fight. The coffee and the excitement no longer kept him up; he was faint, and his breath came short. Above him he heard Ricks's rasping voice still talking to the few customers who were left. He knew, without glancing up, just how Ricks looked when he said the words; he knew how his teeth pushed his lips back, and how his restless little eyes watched everything at once. A sudden fierce repulsion swept over him for peddling, for Ricks, for himself. "And to think," he whispered, with a sob in his throat, "that I can't ever speak to a girl like that!" Ricks, jubilant over the success of the evening, decided to follow the circus, which was to be in the next town on the following day. "It ain't fur," he said. "We kin push on to-night and be ready to open early in the morning." Sandy, miserable in body and spirit, mechanically obeyed instructions. His head was getting queerer all the time, and he could not remember whether it was day or night. About a mile from Clayton he sank down by the road. "Say, Ricks," he said abruptly; "I'm after quittin' peddlin'." "What you goin' to do?" "I'm goin' to school." If Sandy had announced his intention of putting on baby clothes and being wheeled in a perambulator, Ricks could not have been more astonished. "What?" he asked in genuine doubt. "'Cause I want to be the right sort," burst out Sandy, passionately. "This ain't the way you get to be the right sort." Ricks surveyed him contemptuously. "Look-a here, are you comin' along of me or not?" "I can't," said Sandy, weakly. Ricks shifted his pack, and with never a parting word or a backward look he left his business partner of three months lying by the roadside, and tramped away in the darkness. Sandy started up to follow him; he tried to call, but he had no strength. He lay with his face on the road and talked. He knew there was nobody to listen, but still he kept on, softly talking about microscopes and pink soap, crying out again and again that he couldn't ever speak to a girl like that. After a long while somebody came. At first he thought he must have gone back to the land behind the peat-flames, for it was a great black witch who bent over him, and he instinctively felt about in the grass for the tender, soft hand which he used to press against his cheek. He found instead the hand of the witch herself, and he drew back in terror. "Fer de Lawd sake, honey, what's de matter wif you?" asked a kindly voice. Sandy opened his eyes. A tall old negro woman bent over him, her head tied up in a turban, and a shawl about her shoulders. "Did you git runned over?" she asked, peering down at him anxiously. Sandy tried to explain, but it was all the old mixture of soap and microscopes and never being able to speak to her. He knew he was talking at random, but he could not say the things he thought. "Where'd you come from, boy?" "Curragh Chase, Limerick," murmured Sandy. "'Fore de Lawd, he's done been cunjered!" cried the old woman, aghast. "I'll git it outen of you, chile. You jus' come home wif yer Aunt Melvy; she'll take keer of you. Put yer arm on my shoulder; dat's right. Don't you mind where you gwine at. I got yer bundle. It ain't fur. Hit's dat little house a-hangin' on de side of de hill. Dey calls it 'Who'd 'a' Thought It,' 'ca'se you nebber would 'a' thought of puttin' a house dere. Dat's right; lean on yer mammy. I'll git dem old cunjers outen you." Thus encouraged and supported, Sandy stumbled on through the dark, up a hillside that seemed never to end, across a bridge, then into a tiny log cabin, where he dropped exhausted. Off and on during the night he knew that there was a fire in the room, and that strange things were happening to him. But it was all so queer and unnatural that he did not know where the dreams left off and the real began. He was vaguely conscious of his left foot being tied to the right bedpost, of a lock of his hair being cut off and burned on the hearth, and of a low monotonous chant that seemed to rise and fall with the flicker of the flames. And when he cried out with the pain in his sleep, a kindly black face bent over him, and the chant changed into a soothing murmur: "Nebber you min', sonny; Aunt Melvy gwine git dem cunjers out. She gwine stay by you. You hol' on to her han', an' go to sleep; she'll git dem old cunjers out." CHAPTER VI HOLLIS FARM Clayton was an easy-going, prosperous old town which, in the enthusiasm of youth, had started to climb the long hill to the north, but growing indolent with age, | than | How many times the word 'than' appears in the text? | 1 |
ventured a step nearer and continued his observations. As he did so, he made a discovery. The soft white of her cheek was gradually becoming pinker and pinker; the color which began under her lace collar stole up and up until it reached her eyes, which still gazed determinedly before her. Sandy admired it as a traveler admires a sunrise, and with as little idea of having caused it. The line of passengers moved slowly forward, and his heart sank. Suddenly his eyes fell upon the little hand-bag which she carried. On one end, in small white letters, was: "Ruth Nelson, Kentucky, U.S.A." He watched her until she was lost to view, then he turned eagerly back into the crowd. Elbowing his way forward, he seized Ricks by the arm. "Hi, there!" he cried; "I've changed me mind. I'm goin' with you to Kentucky!" So this impetuous knight errant enlisted under the will-o'-the-wisp love, and started joyously forth upon his quest. CHAPTER III THE CURSE OF WEALTH It is an oft-proved adage that for ten who can stand adversity there is but one who can stand prosperity. Sandy, alas! was no exception to any rule which went to prove the frailty of human nature. The sudden acquisition of ten dollars cast him into a whirlpool of temptation from which he made little effort to escape. "I ain't goin' on to-day," announced Ricks. "I'm goin' to lay in my goods for peddlin'. I reckon you kin come along of me." Sandy accepted a long and strong cigar, tilted his hat, and unconsciously caught Ricks's slouching gait as they went down the street. After all, it was rather pleasant to associate with sophistication. "We'll git on the outside of a little dinner," said Ricks; "and I'll mosey round in the stores awhile, then I'll take you to a show or two. It's a mighty good thing for you that you got me along." Sandy thought so too. He cheerfully stood treat for the rest of the day, and felt that it was small return for Ricks's condescension. "How much you got left?" asked Ricks, that night, as they stopped under a street light to take stock. Sandy held out a couple of dollars and a fifty-cent piece. "Enough to put on the eyes of two and a half dead men," he said as he curiously eyed the strange money. "One, two,--two and a half," counted Ricks. "Shillings?" asked Sandy, amazed. Ricks nodded. "And have I blowed all that to-day?" "What of it?" asked Ricks. "I seen a bloke onct what lit his cigar with a bill like the one you had!" "But the doctor said it was two pounds," insisted Sandy, incredulously. He did not realize the expense of a personally conducted tour of the Bowery. "Well, it's went," said Ricks, resignedly. "You can't count on settin' up biz with what's left." Sandy's brows clouded, and he shifted his position restlessly. "Now I ax yerself, Ricks, what'u'd you do?" he said. "Me? I don't give advice to nobody. But effen it was me I'd know mighty quick what to do." "What?" said Sandy, eagerly. "Buy a dawg." "A dog? I ain't goin' blind." "Lor'! but you're a softhorn," said Ricks, contemptuously. "I s'pose you'd count on leadin' him round by a pink ribbon." "Oh, you mean a fighter?" "Sure. My last dawg could do ever'thing in sight. She was so game she went after herself in a lookin'-glass and got kilt. Oh, they's money in dawgs, and I knows how to make 'em win ever' time." Sandy, tired as he was from the day's excitement, insisted upon going in search of one at once. He already had visions of becoming the proud owner of a canine champion that would put him immediately into the position of lighting his cigar with a two-pound note. The first three weeks of their experience on the road went far to realize their expectations. The bulldog, which had been bought in partnership, proved a conquering hero. Through the long summer days the boys tramped over the country, peddling their wares, and by night they conducted sundry unlawful encounters wherever an opponent could be found. Sandy enjoyed the peddling. It was astonishing what friendly sociability and confidential intimacy were established by the sale of blue suspenders and pink soap. He left a line of smiling testimonials in his wake. But if the days were proving satisfactory, so much could not be said of the nights. Even the phenomenal luck that followed his dog failed to keep up his enthusiasm. "You ain't a nachrul sport," complained Ricks. "That's your trouble. When the last fight was on, you set on the fence and listened at a' ole idiot scrapin' a fiddle down in the valley." Sandy made a feeble defense, but he knew in his soul it was so. Affairs reached a climax one night in an old barn on the outskirts of a town. A fight was about to begin when Sandy discovered Ricks judiciously administering a sedative to the enemy's dog. Then understanding dawned upon him, and his rage was elemental. With a valor that lacked the better part of discretion, he hurled himself through the crowd and fell upon Ricks. An hour later, bruised, bloody, and vanquished, he stumbled along through the dreary night. Hot with rage and defeat, utterly ignorant of his whereabouts, his one friend turned foe, he was indeed in sorry plight. He climbed over the fence and lay face downward in the long, cool grass, stretching his bruised and aching body along the ground. A gentle night wind rustled above him, and by and by a star peeped out, then another and another. Before he knew it, he was listening to the frogs and katydids, and wondering what they were talking about. He ceased to think about Ricks and his woes, and gave himself up to the delicious, drowsy peace that was all about him. For, child of nature that he was, he had turned to the only mother he knew. CHAPTER IV SIDE-TRACKED The next morning, at the nearest railroad station, an irate cattleman was trying to hire some one to take charge of a car of live stock which was on its way to a great exposition in a neighboring city. The man he had counted on had not appeared, and the train was about due. As he was turning away in desperation he felt a tug at his elbow. Looking around, he saw a queer figure with a countenance that resembled a first attempt at a charcoal sketch from life: one cheek was larger than the other, the mouth was sadly out of drawing, the eyes shone out from among the bruises like the sun from behind the clouds. But if the features were disfigured, the smile was none the less courageous. Sandy had found a friendly sympathizer at a neighboring farm-house, had been given a good breakfast, had made his toilet, and was ready for the next round in the fight of life. "I'll be doin' yer job, sir, whatever it is," he said pleasantly. The man eyed him with misgiving, but his need was urgent. "All you have to do is to stay in the car and look after the cattle. My man will meet you when you reach the city. Do you think you can do it?" "Just keep company with the cows?" cried Sandy. "Sure and I can!" So the bargain was struck, and that night found him in the great city with a dollar in his pocket and a promise of work in the morning. Tired and sore from the experiences of the night before, he sought a cheap lodging-house near by. A hook-nosed woman, carrying a smoking lamp, conducted him to a room under the eaves. It was small and suffocating. He involuntarily lifted his hands and touched the ceiling. "It's like a boilin' potato I feel," he said; "and the pot's so little and the lid so tight!" He went to the window, and taking out the nail that held down the sash, pushed it up. Below him lay the great, bustling city, cabs and cars in constant motion, long lines of blazing lights marking the thoroughfares, the thunder of trains in the big station, and above and below and through it all a dull monotonous roar, like the faraway unceasing cry of a hungry beast. He sank on his knees by the window, and a restless, nervous look came into his eyes. "It presses in, too," he thought. "It's all crowdin' over me. I'm just me by myself, all alone." A tear made a white course down his grimy cheek, then another and another. He brushed them impatiently away with the cap he still held in his hand. Rising abruptly, he turned away from the window, and the hot air of the room again smote him. The smoking lamp had blackened the chimney, and as he bent to turn it down, he caught his reflection in a small mirror over the table. What the bruises and swelling had left undone the cheap mirror completed. He started back. Was that the boy he knew as himself? Was that Sandy Kilday who had come to America to seek his fortune? He stared in a sort of fascinated horror at that other boy in the mirror. Before he had been afraid to be by himself, now he was afraid of himself. He seized his cap, and blowing out the lamp, plunged down four flights of steep narrow steps and out into the street. A number of people were crowding into a street-car marked "Exposition." Sandy, ever a straw in the current, joined them. Once more down among his fellow-men, he began to feel more comfortable. He cheerfully paid his entrance fee with one of the two silver coins in his pocket. The first building he entered was the art gallery, and the first picture that caught his eye held him spellbound. He sat before it all the evening with fascinated eyes, devouring every detail and oblivious to the curious interest he was attracting; for the huge canvas represented the Knights of the Round Table, and he had at last found friends. All the way back he thought about the picture; it was not until he reached his room that the former loneliness returned. But even then it was not for long. A pair of yellow eyes peered around the window-sill, and a plaintive "meow" begged for admittance. It was plainly Providence that guided that thin and ill-treated kitten to Sandy's window. The welcome it received must have completely restored its shaken faith in human nature. Tired as he was, Sandy went out and bought some milk. He wanted to establish a firm friendship; for if he was to stay in this lonely city, he must have something to love, if only a prodigal kitten of doubtful pedigree. During the long, hot days that followed Sandy worked faithfully at the depot. The regular hours and confinement seemed doubly irksome after the bohemian life on the road. The Exposition was his salvation. No sacrifice seemed too great to enable him to get beyond that magic gate. For the "Knights of the Round Table" was but the beginning of miles and miles of wonderful pictures. He even bought a catalogue, and, prompted by a natural curiosity for anything that interested him, learned the names of the artists he liked best, and the bits of biography attached to each. He would recite these to the yellow kitten when he got back to his little hot-box of a room. One night the art gallery was closed, and he went into another big building where a crowd of people were seated. At one end of it was a great pipe-organ, and after a while some one began to play. With his cap tightly grasped in both hands, he tiptoed down the center aisle and stood breathlessly drinking in the wonderful tones that seemed to be coming from his own heart. "Get out of the way, boy," said an usher. "You are blocking the aisle." A queer-appearing lady who looked like a man touched his elbow. "Here's a seat," she said in a deep voice. "Thank you, sir," said Sandy, absently. He scarcely knew whether he was sitting or standing. He only wanted to be let alone, so that he could listen to those strange, beautiful sounds that made a shiver of joy go down his back. Art had had her day; it was Music's turn. When the last number had been played, he turned to the queer lady: "Do they do it every night?" She smiled at his enthusiasm: "Wednesdays and Saturdays." "Say," said Sandy, confidentially, "if you come first do you save me a seat, and I'll do the same by you." From that time on he decided to be a musician, and he lived on two scanty meals a day in order to attend the concerts. But this exalted scheme of high thinking and plain living soon became irksome. One day, when his loneliness weighed most heavily upon him, he was sent with a message out to the switch-station. As he tramped back along the track he spied a familiar figure ahead of him. There was no mistaking that short, slouching body with the peddler's pack strapped on its back. With a cry of joy, Sandy bounded after Ricks Wilson. He actually hugged him in his joy to be once more with some one he knew. Ricks glanced uneasily at the scar above his eye. Sandy clapped his hand over it and laughed. "It's all right, Ricks; a miss is as good as a mile. I ain't mad any more. It's straight home with me you are goin'; and if we can get the two feet of you into me bit of a room, we'll have a dinner that's fit for a king." On the way they laid in a supply of provisions, Sandy even going to the expense of a bottle of beer for Ricks. The yellow kitten arched her back and showed general signs of hostility when the stranger was introduced. But her unfriendly demonstrations were ignored. Ricks was the honored guest, and Sandy extended to him the full hospitality of the establishment. "Put your pack on the floor and yerself in the chair, and I'll get ye filled up in the blink of an eyelash. Don't be mindin' the cat, Ricks. She's just lettin' on she don't take to you. She give me the wink on the sly." Ricks, expanding under the influence of food and drink, became eloquent. He recounted courageous adventures of the past, and outlined marvelous schemes for the future, by which he was going to make a short cut to fame and glory. When it was time for him to go, Sandy heaved a sigh of regret. For two hours he had been beguiled by Ricks's romances, and now he had to go back to the humdrum duties at the depot, and receive a sound rating for his belated appearance. "Which way might you be goin', Ricks?" he asked wistfully. "Same place I started fer," said Ricks. "Kentucky." The will-o'-the-wisp, which had been hiding his light, suddenly swung it full in the eyes of Sandy. Once more he saw the little maid of his dreams, and once more he threw discretion to the winds and followed the vision. Hastily collecting his few possessions, he rolled them into a bundle, and slipping the surprised kitten into his pocket, he gladly followed Ricks once more out into the broad green meadows, along the white and shining roads that lead over the hills to Kentucky. CHAPTER V SANDY RETIRES FROM BUSINESS "This here is too blame slow fer me," said Ricks, one chilly night in late September, as he and Sandy huddled against a haystack and settled up their weekly accounts. "Fifty-five cents! Now ain't that a' o'nery dab? Here's a quarter fer you and thirty cents fer me; that's as even as you kin split it." "It's the microscopes that'll be sellin'," said Sandy, hopefully, as he pulled his coat collar about his ears and shivered. "The man as sold 'em to me said they was a great bargain entirely. He thought there was money in 'em." "For him," said Ricks, contemptuously. "It's like the man what gulled us on the penknives. I lay to git even with him, all right." "But he give us the night's lodgin' and some breakfast," said Sandy. Ricks took a long drink from a short bottle, then holding it before him, he said impressively: "A feller could do me ninety-nine good turns, and if he done me one bad one it would wipe 'em all out. I got to git even with anybody what does me dirty, if it takes me all my life." "But don't you forget to remember?" "Not me. I ain't that kind." Sandy leaned wearily against the haystack and tried to shelter himself from the wind. A continued diet of bread and water had made him sensitive to the changes in the weather. "This here grub is kinder hard on yer head-rails," said Ricks, trying to bite through a piece of stale bread. A baker had let them have three loaves for a dime because they were old and hard. Sandy cast a longing look at Ricks's short bottle. It seemed to remedy so many ills, heat or cold, thirst or hunger. But the strict principles applied during his tender years made him hesitate. "I wish we hadn't lost the kitten," he said, feeling the need of a more cheerful companion. "I'm a-goin' to git another dawg," announced Ricks. "I'm sick of this here doin's." "Ain't we goin' to be turfmen?" asked Sandy, who had listened by the hour to thrilling accounts of life on the track, and had accepted Ricks's ambition as his own. "Not on twenty cents per week," growled Ricks. Sandy's heart sank; he knew what a new dog meant. He burrowed in the hay and tried to sleep, but there was a queer pain that seemed to catch hold of his breath whenever he breathed down deep. It rained the next day, and they tramped disconsolately through village after village. They had oil-cloth covers for their baskets, but their own backs were soaked to the skin. Toward evening they came to the top of a hill, from which they could look directly down upon a large town lying comfortably in the crook of a river's elbow. The rain had stopped, and the belated sun, struggling through the clouds, made up for lost time by reflecting itself in every curve of the winding stream, in every puddle along the road, and in every pane of glass that faced the west. "That's a nobby hoss," said Ricks, pointing down the hill. "What's the matter with the feller?" A slight, delicate-looking young man was lying in the road, between the horse and the fence. As the boys came up he stirred and tried to rise. "He's off his nut," said Ricks, starting to pass on; but Sandy stopped. "Get a fall?" he asked. The strange boy shook his head. "I guess I fainted. I must have ridden too hard. I'll be all right in a minute." He leaned his head against a tree and closed his eyes. Sandy eyed him curiously, taking in all the details of his riding-costume down to the short whip with the silver mounting. "I say, Ricks," he called to his companion, who was inspecting the horse, "can't we do somethin' for him?" Ricks reluctantly produced the short bottle. "I'm all right," insisted the boy, "if you'll just give me a lift to the saddle." But his eager eyes followed the bottle, and before Ricks had returned it to his pocket he held out his hand. "I believe I will take a drink if you don't mind." He drained the contents and then handed a coin to Ricks. "Now, if you'll help me," continued the stranger. "There! Thank you very much." "Say, what town is this, anyway?" asked Ricks. "Clayton," said the boy, trying to keep his horse from backing. "Looks like somethin' was doin'," said Ricks. "Circus, I believe." "Then I don't blame your nag for wantin' to go back!" cried Sandy. "Come on, Ricks; let's take in the show!" Half-way down the hill he turned. "Haven't we seen that fellow before, Ricks?" "Not as I knows of. He looked kinder pale and shaky, but you bet yer life he knowed how to hit the bottle." "He was sick," urged Sandy. "An' thirsty," added Ricks, with a smile of superior wisdom. The circus seemed such a timely opportunity to do business that they decided to rent a stand that night and sell their wares on the street corner. Ricks went on into town to arrange matters, while Sandy stopped in a grocery to buy their supper. His interest in the show had been of short duration. He felt listless and tired, something seemed to be buzzing continually in his head, and he shivered in his damp clothes. In the grocery he sat on a barrel and leaned his head against the wall. "What you shivering about?" asked the fat woman behind the counter, as she tied up his small package. "I feel like me skeleton was doin' a jig inside of me," said Sandy through chattering teeth. "Looks to me like you got a chill," said the fat woman. "You wait here, and I'll go git you some hot coffee." She disappeared in the rear of the store, and soon returned with a small coffee-pot and a cup and saucer. Sandy drank two cups and a half, then he asked the price. "Price?" repeated the woman, indignantly. "I reckon you don't know which side of the Ohio River you're on!" Sandy made up in gratitude what she declined in cash, and started on his way. At the corner of Main street and the bridge he found Ricks, who had rented a stand and was already arranging his wares. Sandy knelt on the sidewalk and unpacked his basket. "Only three bars of soap and seventy-five microscopes!" he exclaimed ruefully. "Let's be layin' fine stress on the microscopes, Ricks." "You do the jawin', Sandy. I ain't much on givin' 'em the talk," said Ricks. "Chuck a jolly at 'em and keep 'em hangin' round." As dark came on, trade began. The three bars of soap were sold, and a purple necktie. Sandy saw that public taste must be guided in the proper direction. He stepped up on a box and began eloquently to enumerate the diverse uses of microscopes. At each end of the stand a flaring torch lighted up the scene. The light fell on the careless, laughing faces in front, on Ricks Wilson, black-browed and suspicious, in the rear, and it fell full on Sandy, who stood on high and harangued the crowd. It fell on his broad, straight shoulders and on his shining tumbled hair; but it was not the light of the torch that gave the brightness to his eyes and the flush to his cheek. His head was throbbing, but he felt a curious sense of elation. He felt that he could stand there and talk the rest of his life. He made the crowd listen, he made it laugh, he made it buy. He told stories and sang songs, he coaxed and persuaded, until only a few microscopes were left and the old cigar-box was heavy with silver. "Step right up and take a look at a fly's leg! Every one ought to have a microscope in his home. When you get hard up it will make a dime look like a dollar, and a dollar like a five-dollar gold piece. Step right up! I ain't kiddin' you. Five cents for two looks, and fifteen for the microscope." Suddenly he faltered. At the edge of the crowd he had recognized two faces. They were sensitive slender faces, strangely alike in feature and unlike in expression. The young horseman of the afternoon was impatiently pushing his way through the crowd, while close behind him was a dainty girl with brown eyes slightly lifted at the outer corners, who held back in laughing wonder to watch the scene. "Ricks," said Sandy, lowering his voice unsteadily, "is this Kentucky?" "Yep; we crossed the line to-day." "I can't talk no more," said Sandy. "You'll have to be doin' it. I'm sick." It was not only the fever that was burning in his veins, and making him bury his hot head in his hands and wish he had never been born. It was shame and humiliation, and all because of the look on the face of the girl at the edge of the crowd. He sat in the shadow of the big box and fought his fight. The coffee and the excitement no longer kept him up; he was faint, and his breath came short. Above him he heard Ricks's rasping voice still talking to the few customers who were left. He knew, without glancing up, just how Ricks looked when he said the words; he knew how his teeth pushed his lips back, and how his restless little eyes watched everything at once. A sudden fierce repulsion swept over him for peddling, for Ricks, for himself. "And to think," he whispered, with a sob in his throat, "that I can't ever speak to a girl like that!" Ricks, jubilant over the success of the evening, decided to follow the circus, which was to be in the next town on the following day. "It ain't fur," he said. "We kin push on to-night and be ready to open early in the morning." Sandy, miserable in body and spirit, mechanically obeyed instructions. His head was getting queerer all the time, and he could not remember whether it was day or night. About a mile from Clayton he sank down by the road. "Say, Ricks," he said abruptly; "I'm after quittin' peddlin'." "What you goin' to do?" "I'm goin' to school." If Sandy had announced his intention of putting on baby clothes and being wheeled in a perambulator, Ricks could not have been more astonished. "What?" he asked in genuine doubt. "'Cause I want to be the right sort," burst out Sandy, passionately. "This ain't the way you get to be the right sort." Ricks surveyed him contemptuously. "Look-a here, are you comin' along of me or not?" "I can't," said Sandy, weakly. Ricks shifted his pack, and with never a parting word or a backward look he left his business partner of three months lying by the roadside, and tramped away in the darkness. Sandy started up to follow him; he tried to call, but he had no strength. He lay with his face on the road and talked. He knew there was nobody to listen, but still he kept on, softly talking about microscopes and pink soap, crying out again and again that he couldn't ever speak to a girl like that. After a long while somebody came. At first he thought he must have gone back to the land behind the peat-flames, for it was a great black witch who bent over him, and he instinctively felt about in the grass for the tender, soft hand which he used to press against his cheek. He found instead the hand of the witch herself, and he drew back in terror. "Fer de Lawd sake, honey, what's de matter wif you?" asked a kindly voice. Sandy opened his eyes. A tall old negro woman bent over him, her head tied up in a turban, and a shawl about her shoulders. "Did you git runned over?" she asked, peering down at him anxiously. Sandy tried to explain, but it was all the old mixture of soap and microscopes and never being able to speak to her. He knew he was talking at random, but he could not say the things he thought. "Where'd you come from, boy?" "Curragh Chase, Limerick," murmured Sandy. "'Fore de Lawd, he's done been cunjered!" cried the old woman, aghast. "I'll git it outen of you, chile. You jus' come home wif yer Aunt Melvy; she'll take keer of you. Put yer arm on my shoulder; dat's right. Don't you mind where you gwine at. I got yer bundle. It ain't fur. Hit's dat little house a-hangin' on de side of de hill. Dey calls it 'Who'd 'a' Thought It,' 'ca'se you nebber would 'a' thought of puttin' a house dere. Dat's right; lean on yer mammy. I'll git dem old cunjers outen you." Thus encouraged and supported, Sandy stumbled on through the dark, up a hillside that seemed never to end, across a bridge, then into a tiny log cabin, where he dropped exhausted. Off and on during the night he knew that there was a fire in the room, and that strange things were happening to him. But it was all so queer and unnatural that he did not know where the dreams left off and the real began. He was vaguely conscious of his left foot being tied to the right bedpost, of a lock of his hair being cut off and burned on the hearth, and of a low monotonous chant that seemed to rise and fall with the flicker of the flames. And when he cried out with the pain in his sleep, a kindly black face bent over him, and the chant changed into a soothing murmur: "Nebber you min', sonny; Aunt Melvy gwine git dem cunjers out. She gwine stay by you. You hol' on to her han', an' go to sleep; she'll git dem old cunjers out." CHAPTER VI HOLLIS FARM Clayton was an easy-going, prosperous old town which, in the enthusiasm of youth, had started to climb the long hill to the north, but growing indolent with age, | creation | How many times the word 'creation' appears in the text? | 0 |
ventured a step nearer and continued his observations. As he did so, he made a discovery. The soft white of her cheek was gradually becoming pinker and pinker; the color which began under her lace collar stole up and up until it reached her eyes, which still gazed determinedly before her. Sandy admired it as a traveler admires a sunrise, and with as little idea of having caused it. The line of passengers moved slowly forward, and his heart sank. Suddenly his eyes fell upon the little hand-bag which she carried. On one end, in small white letters, was: "Ruth Nelson, Kentucky, U.S.A." He watched her until she was lost to view, then he turned eagerly back into the crowd. Elbowing his way forward, he seized Ricks by the arm. "Hi, there!" he cried; "I've changed me mind. I'm goin' with you to Kentucky!" So this impetuous knight errant enlisted under the will-o'-the-wisp love, and started joyously forth upon his quest. CHAPTER III THE CURSE OF WEALTH It is an oft-proved adage that for ten who can stand adversity there is but one who can stand prosperity. Sandy, alas! was no exception to any rule which went to prove the frailty of human nature. The sudden acquisition of ten dollars cast him into a whirlpool of temptation from which he made little effort to escape. "I ain't goin' on to-day," announced Ricks. "I'm goin' to lay in my goods for peddlin'. I reckon you kin come along of me." Sandy accepted a long and strong cigar, tilted his hat, and unconsciously caught Ricks's slouching gait as they went down the street. After all, it was rather pleasant to associate with sophistication. "We'll git on the outside of a little dinner," said Ricks; "and I'll mosey round in the stores awhile, then I'll take you to a show or two. It's a mighty good thing for you that you got me along." Sandy thought so too. He cheerfully stood treat for the rest of the day, and felt that it was small return for Ricks's condescension. "How much you got left?" asked Ricks, that night, as they stopped under a street light to take stock. Sandy held out a couple of dollars and a fifty-cent piece. "Enough to put on the eyes of two and a half dead men," he said as he curiously eyed the strange money. "One, two,--two and a half," counted Ricks. "Shillings?" asked Sandy, amazed. Ricks nodded. "And have I blowed all that to-day?" "What of it?" asked Ricks. "I seen a bloke onct what lit his cigar with a bill like the one you had!" "But the doctor said it was two pounds," insisted Sandy, incredulously. He did not realize the expense of a personally conducted tour of the Bowery. "Well, it's went," said Ricks, resignedly. "You can't count on settin' up biz with what's left." Sandy's brows clouded, and he shifted his position restlessly. "Now I ax yerself, Ricks, what'u'd you do?" he said. "Me? I don't give advice to nobody. But effen it was me I'd know mighty quick what to do." "What?" said Sandy, eagerly. "Buy a dawg." "A dog? I ain't goin' blind." "Lor'! but you're a softhorn," said Ricks, contemptuously. "I s'pose you'd count on leadin' him round by a pink ribbon." "Oh, you mean a fighter?" "Sure. My last dawg could do ever'thing in sight. She was so game she went after herself in a lookin'-glass and got kilt. Oh, they's money in dawgs, and I knows how to make 'em win ever' time." Sandy, tired as he was from the day's excitement, insisted upon going in search of one at once. He already had visions of becoming the proud owner of a canine champion that would put him immediately into the position of lighting his cigar with a two-pound note. The first three weeks of their experience on the road went far to realize their expectations. The bulldog, which had been bought in partnership, proved a conquering hero. Through the long summer days the boys tramped over the country, peddling their wares, and by night they conducted sundry unlawful encounters wherever an opponent could be found. Sandy enjoyed the peddling. It was astonishing what friendly sociability and confidential intimacy were established by the sale of blue suspenders and pink soap. He left a line of smiling testimonials in his wake. But if the days were proving satisfactory, so much could not be said of the nights. Even the phenomenal luck that followed his dog failed to keep up his enthusiasm. "You ain't a nachrul sport," complained Ricks. "That's your trouble. When the last fight was on, you set on the fence and listened at a' ole idiot scrapin' a fiddle down in the valley." Sandy made a feeble defense, but he knew in his soul it was so. Affairs reached a climax one night in an old barn on the outskirts of a town. A fight was about to begin when Sandy discovered Ricks judiciously administering a sedative to the enemy's dog. Then understanding dawned upon him, and his rage was elemental. With a valor that lacked the better part of discretion, he hurled himself through the crowd and fell upon Ricks. An hour later, bruised, bloody, and vanquished, he stumbled along through the dreary night. Hot with rage and defeat, utterly ignorant of his whereabouts, his one friend turned foe, he was indeed in sorry plight. He climbed over the fence and lay face downward in the long, cool grass, stretching his bruised and aching body along the ground. A gentle night wind rustled above him, and by and by a star peeped out, then another and another. Before he knew it, he was listening to the frogs and katydids, and wondering what they were talking about. He ceased to think about Ricks and his woes, and gave himself up to the delicious, drowsy peace that was all about him. For, child of nature that he was, he had turned to the only mother he knew. CHAPTER IV SIDE-TRACKED The next morning, at the nearest railroad station, an irate cattleman was trying to hire some one to take charge of a car of live stock which was on its way to a great exposition in a neighboring city. The man he had counted on had not appeared, and the train was about due. As he was turning away in desperation he felt a tug at his elbow. Looking around, he saw a queer figure with a countenance that resembled a first attempt at a charcoal sketch from life: one cheek was larger than the other, the mouth was sadly out of drawing, the eyes shone out from among the bruises like the sun from behind the clouds. But if the features were disfigured, the smile was none the less courageous. Sandy had found a friendly sympathizer at a neighboring farm-house, had been given a good breakfast, had made his toilet, and was ready for the next round in the fight of life. "I'll be doin' yer job, sir, whatever it is," he said pleasantly. The man eyed him with misgiving, but his need was urgent. "All you have to do is to stay in the car and look after the cattle. My man will meet you when you reach the city. Do you think you can do it?" "Just keep company with the cows?" cried Sandy. "Sure and I can!" So the bargain was struck, and that night found him in the great city with a dollar in his pocket and a promise of work in the morning. Tired and sore from the experiences of the night before, he sought a cheap lodging-house near by. A hook-nosed woman, carrying a smoking lamp, conducted him to a room under the eaves. It was small and suffocating. He involuntarily lifted his hands and touched the ceiling. "It's like a boilin' potato I feel," he said; "and the pot's so little and the lid so tight!" He went to the window, and taking out the nail that held down the sash, pushed it up. Below him lay the great, bustling city, cabs and cars in constant motion, long lines of blazing lights marking the thoroughfares, the thunder of trains in the big station, and above and below and through it all a dull monotonous roar, like the faraway unceasing cry of a hungry beast. He sank on his knees by the window, and a restless, nervous look came into his eyes. "It presses in, too," he thought. "It's all crowdin' over me. I'm just me by myself, all alone." A tear made a white course down his grimy cheek, then another and another. He brushed them impatiently away with the cap he still held in his hand. Rising abruptly, he turned away from the window, and the hot air of the room again smote him. The smoking lamp had blackened the chimney, and as he bent to turn it down, he caught his reflection in a small mirror over the table. What the bruises and swelling had left undone the cheap mirror completed. He started back. Was that the boy he knew as himself? Was that Sandy Kilday who had come to America to seek his fortune? He stared in a sort of fascinated horror at that other boy in the mirror. Before he had been afraid to be by himself, now he was afraid of himself. He seized his cap, and blowing out the lamp, plunged down four flights of steep narrow steps and out into the street. A number of people were crowding into a street-car marked "Exposition." Sandy, ever a straw in the current, joined them. Once more down among his fellow-men, he began to feel more comfortable. He cheerfully paid his entrance fee with one of the two silver coins in his pocket. The first building he entered was the art gallery, and the first picture that caught his eye held him spellbound. He sat before it all the evening with fascinated eyes, devouring every detail and oblivious to the curious interest he was attracting; for the huge canvas represented the Knights of the Round Table, and he had at last found friends. All the way back he thought about the picture; it was not until he reached his room that the former loneliness returned. But even then it was not for long. A pair of yellow eyes peered around the window-sill, and a plaintive "meow" begged for admittance. It was plainly Providence that guided that thin and ill-treated kitten to Sandy's window. The welcome it received must have completely restored its shaken faith in human nature. Tired as he was, Sandy went out and bought some milk. He wanted to establish a firm friendship; for if he was to stay in this lonely city, he must have something to love, if only a prodigal kitten of doubtful pedigree. During the long, hot days that followed Sandy worked faithfully at the depot. The regular hours and confinement seemed doubly irksome after the bohemian life on the road. The Exposition was his salvation. No sacrifice seemed too great to enable him to get beyond that magic gate. For the "Knights of the Round Table" was but the beginning of miles and miles of wonderful pictures. He even bought a catalogue, and, prompted by a natural curiosity for anything that interested him, learned the names of the artists he liked best, and the bits of biography attached to each. He would recite these to the yellow kitten when he got back to his little hot-box of a room. One night the art gallery was closed, and he went into another big building where a crowd of people were seated. At one end of it was a great pipe-organ, and after a while some one began to play. With his cap tightly grasped in both hands, he tiptoed down the center aisle and stood breathlessly drinking in the wonderful tones that seemed to be coming from his own heart. "Get out of the way, boy," said an usher. "You are blocking the aisle." A queer-appearing lady who looked like a man touched his elbow. "Here's a seat," she said in a deep voice. "Thank you, sir," said Sandy, absently. He scarcely knew whether he was sitting or standing. He only wanted to be let alone, so that he could listen to those strange, beautiful sounds that made a shiver of joy go down his back. Art had had her day; it was Music's turn. When the last number had been played, he turned to the queer lady: "Do they do it every night?" She smiled at his enthusiasm: "Wednesdays and Saturdays." "Say," said Sandy, confidentially, "if you come first do you save me a seat, and I'll do the same by you." From that time on he decided to be a musician, and he lived on two scanty meals a day in order to attend the concerts. But this exalted scheme of high thinking and plain living soon became irksome. One day, when his loneliness weighed most heavily upon him, he was sent with a message out to the switch-station. As he tramped back along the track he spied a familiar figure ahead of him. There was no mistaking that short, slouching body with the peddler's pack strapped on its back. With a cry of joy, Sandy bounded after Ricks Wilson. He actually hugged him in his joy to be once more with some one he knew. Ricks glanced uneasily at the scar above his eye. Sandy clapped his hand over it and laughed. "It's all right, Ricks; a miss is as good as a mile. I ain't mad any more. It's straight home with me you are goin'; and if we can get the two feet of you into me bit of a room, we'll have a dinner that's fit for a king." On the way they laid in a supply of provisions, Sandy even going to the expense of a bottle of beer for Ricks. The yellow kitten arched her back and showed general signs of hostility when the stranger was introduced. But her unfriendly demonstrations were ignored. Ricks was the honored guest, and Sandy extended to him the full hospitality of the establishment. "Put your pack on the floor and yerself in the chair, and I'll get ye filled up in the blink of an eyelash. Don't be mindin' the cat, Ricks. She's just lettin' on she don't take to you. She give me the wink on the sly." Ricks, expanding under the influence of food and drink, became eloquent. He recounted courageous adventures of the past, and outlined marvelous schemes for the future, by which he was going to make a short cut to fame and glory. When it was time for him to go, Sandy heaved a sigh of regret. For two hours he had been beguiled by Ricks's romances, and now he had to go back to the humdrum duties at the depot, and receive a sound rating for his belated appearance. "Which way might you be goin', Ricks?" he asked wistfully. "Same place I started fer," said Ricks. "Kentucky." The will-o'-the-wisp, which had been hiding his light, suddenly swung it full in the eyes of Sandy. Once more he saw the little maid of his dreams, and once more he threw discretion to the winds and followed the vision. Hastily collecting his few possessions, he rolled them into a bundle, and slipping the surprised kitten into his pocket, he gladly followed Ricks once more out into the broad green meadows, along the white and shining roads that lead over the hills to Kentucky. CHAPTER V SANDY RETIRES FROM BUSINESS "This here is too blame slow fer me," said Ricks, one chilly night in late September, as he and Sandy huddled against a haystack and settled up their weekly accounts. "Fifty-five cents! Now ain't that a' o'nery dab? Here's a quarter fer you and thirty cents fer me; that's as even as you kin split it." "It's the microscopes that'll be sellin'," said Sandy, hopefully, as he pulled his coat collar about his ears and shivered. "The man as sold 'em to me said they was a great bargain entirely. He thought there was money in 'em." "For him," said Ricks, contemptuously. "It's like the man what gulled us on the penknives. I lay to git even with him, all right." "But he give us the night's lodgin' and some breakfast," said Sandy. Ricks took a long drink from a short bottle, then holding it before him, he said impressively: "A feller could do me ninety-nine good turns, and if he done me one bad one it would wipe 'em all out. I got to git even with anybody what does me dirty, if it takes me all my life." "But don't you forget to remember?" "Not me. I ain't that kind." Sandy leaned wearily against the haystack and tried to shelter himself from the wind. A continued diet of bread and water had made him sensitive to the changes in the weather. "This here grub is kinder hard on yer head-rails," said Ricks, trying to bite through a piece of stale bread. A baker had let them have three loaves for a dime because they were old and hard. Sandy cast a longing look at Ricks's short bottle. It seemed to remedy so many ills, heat or cold, thirst or hunger. But the strict principles applied during his tender years made him hesitate. "I wish we hadn't lost the kitten," he said, feeling the need of a more cheerful companion. "I'm a-goin' to git another dawg," announced Ricks. "I'm sick of this here doin's." "Ain't we goin' to be turfmen?" asked Sandy, who had listened by the hour to thrilling accounts of life on the track, and had accepted Ricks's ambition as his own. "Not on twenty cents per week," growled Ricks. Sandy's heart sank; he knew what a new dog meant. He burrowed in the hay and tried to sleep, but there was a queer pain that seemed to catch hold of his breath whenever he breathed down deep. It rained the next day, and they tramped disconsolately through village after village. They had oil-cloth covers for their baskets, but their own backs were soaked to the skin. Toward evening they came to the top of a hill, from which they could look directly down upon a large town lying comfortably in the crook of a river's elbow. The rain had stopped, and the belated sun, struggling through the clouds, made up for lost time by reflecting itself in every curve of the winding stream, in every puddle along the road, and in every pane of glass that faced the west. "That's a nobby hoss," said Ricks, pointing down the hill. "What's the matter with the feller?" A slight, delicate-looking young man was lying in the road, between the horse and the fence. As the boys came up he stirred and tried to rise. "He's off his nut," said Ricks, starting to pass on; but Sandy stopped. "Get a fall?" he asked. The strange boy shook his head. "I guess I fainted. I must have ridden too hard. I'll be all right in a minute." He leaned his head against a tree and closed his eyes. Sandy eyed him curiously, taking in all the details of his riding-costume down to the short whip with the silver mounting. "I say, Ricks," he called to his companion, who was inspecting the horse, "can't we do somethin' for him?" Ricks reluctantly produced the short bottle. "I'm all right," insisted the boy, "if you'll just give me a lift to the saddle." But his eager eyes followed the bottle, and before Ricks had returned it to his pocket he held out his hand. "I believe I will take a drink if you don't mind." He drained the contents and then handed a coin to Ricks. "Now, if you'll help me," continued the stranger. "There! Thank you very much." "Say, what town is this, anyway?" asked Ricks. "Clayton," said the boy, trying to keep his horse from backing. "Looks like somethin' was doin'," said Ricks. "Circus, I believe." "Then I don't blame your nag for wantin' to go back!" cried Sandy. "Come on, Ricks; let's take in the show!" Half-way down the hill he turned. "Haven't we seen that fellow before, Ricks?" "Not as I knows of. He looked kinder pale and shaky, but you bet yer life he knowed how to hit the bottle." "He was sick," urged Sandy. "An' thirsty," added Ricks, with a smile of superior wisdom. The circus seemed such a timely opportunity to do business that they decided to rent a stand that night and sell their wares on the street corner. Ricks went on into town to arrange matters, while Sandy stopped in a grocery to buy their supper. His interest in the show had been of short duration. He felt listless and tired, something seemed to be buzzing continually in his head, and he shivered in his damp clothes. In the grocery he sat on a barrel and leaned his head against the wall. "What you shivering about?" asked the fat woman behind the counter, as she tied up his small package. "I feel like me skeleton was doin' a jig inside of me," said Sandy through chattering teeth. "Looks to me like you got a chill," said the fat woman. "You wait here, and I'll go git you some hot coffee." She disappeared in the rear of the store, and soon returned with a small coffee-pot and a cup and saucer. Sandy drank two cups and a half, then he asked the price. "Price?" repeated the woman, indignantly. "I reckon you don't know which side of the Ohio River you're on!" Sandy made up in gratitude what she declined in cash, and started on his way. At the corner of Main street and the bridge he found Ricks, who had rented a stand and was already arranging his wares. Sandy knelt on the sidewalk and unpacked his basket. "Only three bars of soap and seventy-five microscopes!" he exclaimed ruefully. "Let's be layin' fine stress on the microscopes, Ricks." "You do the jawin', Sandy. I ain't much on givin' 'em the talk," said Ricks. "Chuck a jolly at 'em and keep 'em hangin' round." As dark came on, trade began. The three bars of soap were sold, and a purple necktie. Sandy saw that public taste must be guided in the proper direction. He stepped up on a box and began eloquently to enumerate the diverse uses of microscopes. At each end of the stand a flaring torch lighted up the scene. The light fell on the careless, laughing faces in front, on Ricks Wilson, black-browed and suspicious, in the rear, and it fell full on Sandy, who stood on high and harangued the crowd. It fell on his broad, straight shoulders and on his shining tumbled hair; but it was not the light of the torch that gave the brightness to his eyes and the flush to his cheek. His head was throbbing, but he felt a curious sense of elation. He felt that he could stand there and talk the rest of his life. He made the crowd listen, he made it laugh, he made it buy. He told stories and sang songs, he coaxed and persuaded, until only a few microscopes were left and the old cigar-box was heavy with silver. "Step right up and take a look at a fly's leg! Every one ought to have a microscope in his home. When you get hard up it will make a dime look like a dollar, and a dollar like a five-dollar gold piece. Step right up! I ain't kiddin' you. Five cents for two looks, and fifteen for the microscope." Suddenly he faltered. At the edge of the crowd he had recognized two faces. They were sensitive slender faces, strangely alike in feature and unlike in expression. The young horseman of the afternoon was impatiently pushing his way through the crowd, while close behind him was a dainty girl with brown eyes slightly lifted at the outer corners, who held back in laughing wonder to watch the scene. "Ricks," said Sandy, lowering his voice unsteadily, "is this Kentucky?" "Yep; we crossed the line to-day." "I can't talk no more," said Sandy. "You'll have to be doin' it. I'm sick." It was not only the fever that was burning in his veins, and making him bury his hot head in his hands and wish he had never been born. It was shame and humiliation, and all because of the look on the face of the girl at the edge of the crowd. He sat in the shadow of the big box and fought his fight. The coffee and the excitement no longer kept him up; he was faint, and his breath came short. Above him he heard Ricks's rasping voice still talking to the few customers who were left. He knew, without glancing up, just how Ricks looked when he said the words; he knew how his teeth pushed his lips back, and how his restless little eyes watched everything at once. A sudden fierce repulsion swept over him for peddling, for Ricks, for himself. "And to think," he whispered, with a sob in his throat, "that I can't ever speak to a girl like that!" Ricks, jubilant over the success of the evening, decided to follow the circus, which was to be in the next town on the following day. "It ain't fur," he said. "We kin push on to-night and be ready to open early in the morning." Sandy, miserable in body and spirit, mechanically obeyed instructions. His head was getting queerer all the time, and he could not remember whether it was day or night. About a mile from Clayton he sank down by the road. "Say, Ricks," he said abruptly; "I'm after quittin' peddlin'." "What you goin' to do?" "I'm goin' to school." If Sandy had announced his intention of putting on baby clothes and being wheeled in a perambulator, Ricks could not have been more astonished. "What?" he asked in genuine doubt. "'Cause I want to be the right sort," burst out Sandy, passionately. "This ain't the way you get to be the right sort." Ricks surveyed him contemptuously. "Look-a here, are you comin' along of me or not?" "I can't," said Sandy, weakly. Ricks shifted his pack, and with never a parting word or a backward look he left his business partner of three months lying by the roadside, and tramped away in the darkness. Sandy started up to follow him; he tried to call, but he had no strength. He lay with his face on the road and talked. He knew there was nobody to listen, but still he kept on, softly talking about microscopes and pink soap, crying out again and again that he couldn't ever speak to a girl like that. After a long while somebody came. At first he thought he must have gone back to the land behind the peat-flames, for it was a great black witch who bent over him, and he instinctively felt about in the grass for the tender, soft hand which he used to press against his cheek. He found instead the hand of the witch herself, and he drew back in terror. "Fer de Lawd sake, honey, what's de matter wif you?" asked a kindly voice. Sandy opened his eyes. A tall old negro woman bent over him, her head tied up in a turban, and a shawl about her shoulders. "Did you git runned over?" she asked, peering down at him anxiously. Sandy tried to explain, but it was all the old mixture of soap and microscopes and never being able to speak to her. He knew he was talking at random, but he could not say the things he thought. "Where'd you come from, boy?" "Curragh Chase, Limerick," murmured Sandy. "'Fore de Lawd, he's done been cunjered!" cried the old woman, aghast. "I'll git it outen of you, chile. You jus' come home wif yer Aunt Melvy; she'll take keer of you. Put yer arm on my shoulder; dat's right. Don't you mind where you gwine at. I got yer bundle. It ain't fur. Hit's dat little house a-hangin' on de side of de hill. Dey calls it 'Who'd 'a' Thought It,' 'ca'se you nebber would 'a' thought of puttin' a house dere. Dat's right; lean on yer mammy. I'll git dem old cunjers outen you." Thus encouraged and supported, Sandy stumbled on through the dark, up a hillside that seemed never to end, across a bridge, then into a tiny log cabin, where he dropped exhausted. Off and on during the night he knew that there was a fire in the room, and that strange things were happening to him. But it was all so queer and unnatural that he did not know where the dreams left off and the real began. He was vaguely conscious of his left foot being tied to the right bedpost, of a lock of his hair being cut off and burned on the hearth, and of a low monotonous chant that seemed to rise and fall with the flicker of the flames. And when he cried out with the pain in his sleep, a kindly black face bent over him, and the chant changed into a soothing murmur: "Nebber you min', sonny; Aunt Melvy gwine git dem cunjers out. She gwine stay by you. You hol' on to her han', an' go to sleep; she'll git dem old cunjers out." CHAPTER VI HOLLIS FARM Clayton was an easy-going, prosperous old town which, in the enthusiasm of youth, had started to climb the long hill to the north, but growing indolent with age, | randolph | How many times the word 'randolph' appears in the text? | 0 |
ventured a step nearer and continued his observations. As he did so, he made a discovery. The soft white of her cheek was gradually becoming pinker and pinker; the color which began under her lace collar stole up and up until it reached her eyes, which still gazed determinedly before her. Sandy admired it as a traveler admires a sunrise, and with as little idea of having caused it. The line of passengers moved slowly forward, and his heart sank. Suddenly his eyes fell upon the little hand-bag which she carried. On one end, in small white letters, was: "Ruth Nelson, Kentucky, U.S.A." He watched her until she was lost to view, then he turned eagerly back into the crowd. Elbowing his way forward, he seized Ricks by the arm. "Hi, there!" he cried; "I've changed me mind. I'm goin' with you to Kentucky!" So this impetuous knight errant enlisted under the will-o'-the-wisp love, and started joyously forth upon his quest. CHAPTER III THE CURSE OF WEALTH It is an oft-proved adage that for ten who can stand adversity there is but one who can stand prosperity. Sandy, alas! was no exception to any rule which went to prove the frailty of human nature. The sudden acquisition of ten dollars cast him into a whirlpool of temptation from which he made little effort to escape. "I ain't goin' on to-day," announced Ricks. "I'm goin' to lay in my goods for peddlin'. I reckon you kin come along of me." Sandy accepted a long and strong cigar, tilted his hat, and unconsciously caught Ricks's slouching gait as they went down the street. After all, it was rather pleasant to associate with sophistication. "We'll git on the outside of a little dinner," said Ricks; "and I'll mosey round in the stores awhile, then I'll take you to a show or two. It's a mighty good thing for you that you got me along." Sandy thought so too. He cheerfully stood treat for the rest of the day, and felt that it was small return for Ricks's condescension. "How much you got left?" asked Ricks, that night, as they stopped under a street light to take stock. Sandy held out a couple of dollars and a fifty-cent piece. "Enough to put on the eyes of two and a half dead men," he said as he curiously eyed the strange money. "One, two,--two and a half," counted Ricks. "Shillings?" asked Sandy, amazed. Ricks nodded. "And have I blowed all that to-day?" "What of it?" asked Ricks. "I seen a bloke onct what lit his cigar with a bill like the one you had!" "But the doctor said it was two pounds," insisted Sandy, incredulously. He did not realize the expense of a personally conducted tour of the Bowery. "Well, it's went," said Ricks, resignedly. "You can't count on settin' up biz with what's left." Sandy's brows clouded, and he shifted his position restlessly. "Now I ax yerself, Ricks, what'u'd you do?" he said. "Me? I don't give advice to nobody. But effen it was me I'd know mighty quick what to do." "What?" said Sandy, eagerly. "Buy a dawg." "A dog? I ain't goin' blind." "Lor'! but you're a softhorn," said Ricks, contemptuously. "I s'pose you'd count on leadin' him round by a pink ribbon." "Oh, you mean a fighter?" "Sure. My last dawg could do ever'thing in sight. She was so game she went after herself in a lookin'-glass and got kilt. Oh, they's money in dawgs, and I knows how to make 'em win ever' time." Sandy, tired as he was from the day's excitement, insisted upon going in search of one at once. He already had visions of becoming the proud owner of a canine champion that would put him immediately into the position of lighting his cigar with a two-pound note. The first three weeks of their experience on the road went far to realize their expectations. The bulldog, which had been bought in partnership, proved a conquering hero. Through the long summer days the boys tramped over the country, peddling their wares, and by night they conducted sundry unlawful encounters wherever an opponent could be found. Sandy enjoyed the peddling. It was astonishing what friendly sociability and confidential intimacy were established by the sale of blue suspenders and pink soap. He left a line of smiling testimonials in his wake. But if the days were proving satisfactory, so much could not be said of the nights. Even the phenomenal luck that followed his dog failed to keep up his enthusiasm. "You ain't a nachrul sport," complained Ricks. "That's your trouble. When the last fight was on, you set on the fence and listened at a' ole idiot scrapin' a fiddle down in the valley." Sandy made a feeble defense, but he knew in his soul it was so. Affairs reached a climax one night in an old barn on the outskirts of a town. A fight was about to begin when Sandy discovered Ricks judiciously administering a sedative to the enemy's dog. Then understanding dawned upon him, and his rage was elemental. With a valor that lacked the better part of discretion, he hurled himself through the crowd and fell upon Ricks. An hour later, bruised, bloody, and vanquished, he stumbled along through the dreary night. Hot with rage and defeat, utterly ignorant of his whereabouts, his one friend turned foe, he was indeed in sorry plight. He climbed over the fence and lay face downward in the long, cool grass, stretching his bruised and aching body along the ground. A gentle night wind rustled above him, and by and by a star peeped out, then another and another. Before he knew it, he was listening to the frogs and katydids, and wondering what they were talking about. He ceased to think about Ricks and his woes, and gave himself up to the delicious, drowsy peace that was all about him. For, child of nature that he was, he had turned to the only mother he knew. CHAPTER IV SIDE-TRACKED The next morning, at the nearest railroad station, an irate cattleman was trying to hire some one to take charge of a car of live stock which was on its way to a great exposition in a neighboring city. The man he had counted on had not appeared, and the train was about due. As he was turning away in desperation he felt a tug at his elbow. Looking around, he saw a queer figure with a countenance that resembled a first attempt at a charcoal sketch from life: one cheek was larger than the other, the mouth was sadly out of drawing, the eyes shone out from among the bruises like the sun from behind the clouds. But if the features were disfigured, the smile was none the less courageous. Sandy had found a friendly sympathizer at a neighboring farm-house, had been given a good breakfast, had made his toilet, and was ready for the next round in the fight of life. "I'll be doin' yer job, sir, whatever it is," he said pleasantly. The man eyed him with misgiving, but his need was urgent. "All you have to do is to stay in the car and look after the cattle. My man will meet you when you reach the city. Do you think you can do it?" "Just keep company with the cows?" cried Sandy. "Sure and I can!" So the bargain was struck, and that night found him in the great city with a dollar in his pocket and a promise of work in the morning. Tired and sore from the experiences of the night before, he sought a cheap lodging-house near by. A hook-nosed woman, carrying a smoking lamp, conducted him to a room under the eaves. It was small and suffocating. He involuntarily lifted his hands and touched the ceiling. "It's like a boilin' potato I feel," he said; "and the pot's so little and the lid so tight!" He went to the window, and taking out the nail that held down the sash, pushed it up. Below him lay the great, bustling city, cabs and cars in constant motion, long lines of blazing lights marking the thoroughfares, the thunder of trains in the big station, and above and below and through it all a dull monotonous roar, like the faraway unceasing cry of a hungry beast. He sank on his knees by the window, and a restless, nervous look came into his eyes. "It presses in, too," he thought. "It's all crowdin' over me. I'm just me by myself, all alone." A tear made a white course down his grimy cheek, then another and another. He brushed them impatiently away with the cap he still held in his hand. Rising abruptly, he turned away from the window, and the hot air of the room again smote him. The smoking lamp had blackened the chimney, and as he bent to turn it down, he caught his reflection in a small mirror over the table. What the bruises and swelling had left undone the cheap mirror completed. He started back. Was that the boy he knew as himself? Was that Sandy Kilday who had come to America to seek his fortune? He stared in a sort of fascinated horror at that other boy in the mirror. Before he had been afraid to be by himself, now he was afraid of himself. He seized his cap, and blowing out the lamp, plunged down four flights of steep narrow steps and out into the street. A number of people were crowding into a street-car marked "Exposition." Sandy, ever a straw in the current, joined them. Once more down among his fellow-men, he began to feel more comfortable. He cheerfully paid his entrance fee with one of the two silver coins in his pocket. The first building he entered was the art gallery, and the first picture that caught his eye held him spellbound. He sat before it all the evening with fascinated eyes, devouring every detail and oblivious to the curious interest he was attracting; for the huge canvas represented the Knights of the Round Table, and he had at last found friends. All the way back he thought about the picture; it was not until he reached his room that the former loneliness returned. But even then it was not for long. A pair of yellow eyes peered around the window-sill, and a plaintive "meow" begged for admittance. It was plainly Providence that guided that thin and ill-treated kitten to Sandy's window. The welcome it received must have completely restored its shaken faith in human nature. Tired as he was, Sandy went out and bought some milk. He wanted to establish a firm friendship; for if he was to stay in this lonely city, he must have something to love, if only a prodigal kitten of doubtful pedigree. During the long, hot days that followed Sandy worked faithfully at the depot. The regular hours and confinement seemed doubly irksome after the bohemian life on the road. The Exposition was his salvation. No sacrifice seemed too great to enable him to get beyond that magic gate. For the "Knights of the Round Table" was but the beginning of miles and miles of wonderful pictures. He even bought a catalogue, and, prompted by a natural curiosity for anything that interested him, learned the names of the artists he liked best, and the bits of biography attached to each. He would recite these to the yellow kitten when he got back to his little hot-box of a room. One night the art gallery was closed, and he went into another big building where a crowd of people were seated. At one end of it was a great pipe-organ, and after a while some one began to play. With his cap tightly grasped in both hands, he tiptoed down the center aisle and stood breathlessly drinking in the wonderful tones that seemed to be coming from his own heart. "Get out of the way, boy," said an usher. "You are blocking the aisle." A queer-appearing lady who looked like a man touched his elbow. "Here's a seat," she said in a deep voice. "Thank you, sir," said Sandy, absently. He scarcely knew whether he was sitting or standing. He only wanted to be let alone, so that he could listen to those strange, beautiful sounds that made a shiver of joy go down his back. Art had had her day; it was Music's turn. When the last number had been played, he turned to the queer lady: "Do they do it every night?" She smiled at his enthusiasm: "Wednesdays and Saturdays." "Say," said Sandy, confidentially, "if you come first do you save me a seat, and I'll do the same by you." From that time on he decided to be a musician, and he lived on two scanty meals a day in order to attend the concerts. But this exalted scheme of high thinking and plain living soon became irksome. One day, when his loneliness weighed most heavily upon him, he was sent with a message out to the switch-station. As he tramped back along the track he spied a familiar figure ahead of him. There was no mistaking that short, slouching body with the peddler's pack strapped on its back. With a cry of joy, Sandy bounded after Ricks Wilson. He actually hugged him in his joy to be once more with some one he knew. Ricks glanced uneasily at the scar above his eye. Sandy clapped his hand over it and laughed. "It's all right, Ricks; a miss is as good as a mile. I ain't mad any more. It's straight home with me you are goin'; and if we can get the two feet of you into me bit of a room, we'll have a dinner that's fit for a king." On the way they laid in a supply of provisions, Sandy even going to the expense of a bottle of beer for Ricks. The yellow kitten arched her back and showed general signs of hostility when the stranger was introduced. But her unfriendly demonstrations were ignored. Ricks was the honored guest, and Sandy extended to him the full hospitality of the establishment. "Put your pack on the floor and yerself in the chair, and I'll get ye filled up in the blink of an eyelash. Don't be mindin' the cat, Ricks. She's just lettin' on she don't take to you. She give me the wink on the sly." Ricks, expanding under the influence of food and drink, became eloquent. He recounted courageous adventures of the past, and outlined marvelous schemes for the future, by which he was going to make a short cut to fame and glory. When it was time for him to go, Sandy heaved a sigh of regret. For two hours he had been beguiled by Ricks's romances, and now he had to go back to the humdrum duties at the depot, and receive a sound rating for his belated appearance. "Which way might you be goin', Ricks?" he asked wistfully. "Same place I started fer," said Ricks. "Kentucky." The will-o'-the-wisp, which had been hiding his light, suddenly swung it full in the eyes of Sandy. Once more he saw the little maid of his dreams, and once more he threw discretion to the winds and followed the vision. Hastily collecting his few possessions, he rolled them into a bundle, and slipping the surprised kitten into his pocket, he gladly followed Ricks once more out into the broad green meadows, along the white and shining roads that lead over the hills to Kentucky. CHAPTER V SANDY RETIRES FROM BUSINESS "This here is too blame slow fer me," said Ricks, one chilly night in late September, as he and Sandy huddled against a haystack and settled up their weekly accounts. "Fifty-five cents! Now ain't that a' o'nery dab? Here's a quarter fer you and thirty cents fer me; that's as even as you kin split it." "It's the microscopes that'll be sellin'," said Sandy, hopefully, as he pulled his coat collar about his ears and shivered. "The man as sold 'em to me said they was a great bargain entirely. He thought there was money in 'em." "For him," said Ricks, contemptuously. "It's like the man what gulled us on the penknives. I lay to git even with him, all right." "But he give us the night's lodgin' and some breakfast," said Sandy. Ricks took a long drink from a short bottle, then holding it before him, he said impressively: "A feller could do me ninety-nine good turns, and if he done me one bad one it would wipe 'em all out. I got to git even with anybody what does me dirty, if it takes me all my life." "But don't you forget to remember?" "Not me. I ain't that kind." Sandy leaned wearily against the haystack and tried to shelter himself from the wind. A continued diet of bread and water had made him sensitive to the changes in the weather. "This here grub is kinder hard on yer head-rails," said Ricks, trying to bite through a piece of stale bread. A baker had let them have three loaves for a dime because they were old and hard. Sandy cast a longing look at Ricks's short bottle. It seemed to remedy so many ills, heat or cold, thirst or hunger. But the strict principles applied during his tender years made him hesitate. "I wish we hadn't lost the kitten," he said, feeling the need of a more cheerful companion. "I'm a-goin' to git another dawg," announced Ricks. "I'm sick of this here doin's." "Ain't we goin' to be turfmen?" asked Sandy, who had listened by the hour to thrilling accounts of life on the track, and had accepted Ricks's ambition as his own. "Not on twenty cents per week," growled Ricks. Sandy's heart sank; he knew what a new dog meant. He burrowed in the hay and tried to sleep, but there was a queer pain that seemed to catch hold of his breath whenever he breathed down deep. It rained the next day, and they tramped disconsolately through village after village. They had oil-cloth covers for their baskets, but their own backs were soaked to the skin. Toward evening they came to the top of a hill, from which they could look directly down upon a large town lying comfortably in the crook of a river's elbow. The rain had stopped, and the belated sun, struggling through the clouds, made up for lost time by reflecting itself in every curve of the winding stream, in every puddle along the road, and in every pane of glass that faced the west. "That's a nobby hoss," said Ricks, pointing down the hill. "What's the matter with the feller?" A slight, delicate-looking young man was lying in the road, between the horse and the fence. As the boys came up he stirred and tried to rise. "He's off his nut," said Ricks, starting to pass on; but Sandy stopped. "Get a fall?" he asked. The strange boy shook his head. "I guess I fainted. I must have ridden too hard. I'll be all right in a minute." He leaned his head against a tree and closed his eyes. Sandy eyed him curiously, taking in all the details of his riding-costume down to the short whip with the silver mounting. "I say, Ricks," he called to his companion, who was inspecting the horse, "can't we do somethin' for him?" Ricks reluctantly produced the short bottle. "I'm all right," insisted the boy, "if you'll just give me a lift to the saddle." But his eager eyes followed the bottle, and before Ricks had returned it to his pocket he held out his hand. "I believe I will take a drink if you don't mind." He drained the contents and then handed a coin to Ricks. "Now, if you'll help me," continued the stranger. "There! Thank you very much." "Say, what town is this, anyway?" asked Ricks. "Clayton," said the boy, trying to keep his horse from backing. "Looks like somethin' was doin'," said Ricks. "Circus, I believe." "Then I don't blame your nag for wantin' to go back!" cried Sandy. "Come on, Ricks; let's take in the show!" Half-way down the hill he turned. "Haven't we seen that fellow before, Ricks?" "Not as I knows of. He looked kinder pale and shaky, but you bet yer life he knowed how to hit the bottle." "He was sick," urged Sandy. "An' thirsty," added Ricks, with a smile of superior wisdom. The circus seemed such a timely opportunity to do business that they decided to rent a stand that night and sell their wares on the street corner. Ricks went on into town to arrange matters, while Sandy stopped in a grocery to buy their supper. His interest in the show had been of short duration. He felt listless and tired, something seemed to be buzzing continually in his head, and he shivered in his damp clothes. In the grocery he sat on a barrel and leaned his head against the wall. "What you shivering about?" asked the fat woman behind the counter, as she tied up his small package. "I feel like me skeleton was doin' a jig inside of me," said Sandy through chattering teeth. "Looks to me like you got a chill," said the fat woman. "You wait here, and I'll go git you some hot coffee." She disappeared in the rear of the store, and soon returned with a small coffee-pot and a cup and saucer. Sandy drank two cups and a half, then he asked the price. "Price?" repeated the woman, indignantly. "I reckon you don't know which side of the Ohio River you're on!" Sandy made up in gratitude what she declined in cash, and started on his way. At the corner of Main street and the bridge he found Ricks, who had rented a stand and was already arranging his wares. Sandy knelt on the sidewalk and unpacked his basket. "Only three bars of soap and seventy-five microscopes!" he exclaimed ruefully. "Let's be layin' fine stress on the microscopes, Ricks." "You do the jawin', Sandy. I ain't much on givin' 'em the talk," said Ricks. "Chuck a jolly at 'em and keep 'em hangin' round." As dark came on, trade began. The three bars of soap were sold, and a purple necktie. Sandy saw that public taste must be guided in the proper direction. He stepped up on a box and began eloquently to enumerate the diverse uses of microscopes. At each end of the stand a flaring torch lighted up the scene. The light fell on the careless, laughing faces in front, on Ricks Wilson, black-browed and suspicious, in the rear, and it fell full on Sandy, who stood on high and harangued the crowd. It fell on his broad, straight shoulders and on his shining tumbled hair; but it was not the light of the torch that gave the brightness to his eyes and the flush to his cheek. His head was throbbing, but he felt a curious sense of elation. He felt that he could stand there and talk the rest of his life. He made the crowd listen, he made it laugh, he made it buy. He told stories and sang songs, he coaxed and persuaded, until only a few microscopes were left and the old cigar-box was heavy with silver. "Step right up and take a look at a fly's leg! Every one ought to have a microscope in his home. When you get hard up it will make a dime look like a dollar, and a dollar like a five-dollar gold piece. Step right up! I ain't kiddin' you. Five cents for two looks, and fifteen for the microscope." Suddenly he faltered. At the edge of the crowd he had recognized two faces. They were sensitive slender faces, strangely alike in feature and unlike in expression. The young horseman of the afternoon was impatiently pushing his way through the crowd, while close behind him was a dainty girl with brown eyes slightly lifted at the outer corners, who held back in laughing wonder to watch the scene. "Ricks," said Sandy, lowering his voice unsteadily, "is this Kentucky?" "Yep; we crossed the line to-day." "I can't talk no more," said Sandy. "You'll have to be doin' it. I'm sick." It was not only the fever that was burning in his veins, and making him bury his hot head in his hands and wish he had never been born. It was shame and humiliation, and all because of the look on the face of the girl at the edge of the crowd. He sat in the shadow of the big box and fought his fight. The coffee and the excitement no longer kept him up; he was faint, and his breath came short. Above him he heard Ricks's rasping voice still talking to the few customers who were left. He knew, without glancing up, just how Ricks looked when he said the words; he knew how his teeth pushed his lips back, and how his restless little eyes watched everything at once. A sudden fierce repulsion swept over him for peddling, for Ricks, for himself. "And to think," he whispered, with a sob in his throat, "that I can't ever speak to a girl like that!" Ricks, jubilant over the success of the evening, decided to follow the circus, which was to be in the next town on the following day. "It ain't fur," he said. "We kin push on to-night and be ready to open early in the morning." Sandy, miserable in body and spirit, mechanically obeyed instructions. His head was getting queerer all the time, and he could not remember whether it was day or night. About a mile from Clayton he sank down by the road. "Say, Ricks," he said abruptly; "I'm after quittin' peddlin'." "What you goin' to do?" "I'm goin' to school." If Sandy had announced his intention of putting on baby clothes and being wheeled in a perambulator, Ricks could not have been more astonished. "What?" he asked in genuine doubt. "'Cause I want to be the right sort," burst out Sandy, passionately. "This ain't the way you get to be the right sort." Ricks surveyed him contemptuously. "Look-a here, are you comin' along of me or not?" "I can't," said Sandy, weakly. Ricks shifted his pack, and with never a parting word or a backward look he left his business partner of three months lying by the roadside, and tramped away in the darkness. Sandy started up to follow him; he tried to call, but he had no strength. He lay with his face on the road and talked. He knew there was nobody to listen, but still he kept on, softly talking about microscopes and pink soap, crying out again and again that he couldn't ever speak to a girl like that. After a long while somebody came. At first he thought he must have gone back to the land behind the peat-flames, for it was a great black witch who bent over him, and he instinctively felt about in the grass for the tender, soft hand which he used to press against his cheek. He found instead the hand of the witch herself, and he drew back in terror. "Fer de Lawd sake, honey, what's de matter wif you?" asked a kindly voice. Sandy opened his eyes. A tall old negro woman bent over him, her head tied up in a turban, and a shawl about her shoulders. "Did you git runned over?" she asked, peering down at him anxiously. Sandy tried to explain, but it was all the old mixture of soap and microscopes and never being able to speak to her. He knew he was talking at random, but he could not say the things he thought. "Where'd you come from, boy?" "Curragh Chase, Limerick," murmured Sandy. "'Fore de Lawd, he's done been cunjered!" cried the old woman, aghast. "I'll git it outen of you, chile. You jus' come home wif yer Aunt Melvy; she'll take keer of you. Put yer arm on my shoulder; dat's right. Don't you mind where you gwine at. I got yer bundle. It ain't fur. Hit's dat little house a-hangin' on de side of de hill. Dey calls it 'Who'd 'a' Thought It,' 'ca'se you nebber would 'a' thought of puttin' a house dere. Dat's right; lean on yer mammy. I'll git dem old cunjers outen you." Thus encouraged and supported, Sandy stumbled on through the dark, up a hillside that seemed never to end, across a bridge, then into a tiny log cabin, where he dropped exhausted. Off and on during the night he knew that there was a fire in the room, and that strange things were happening to him. But it was all so queer and unnatural that he did not know where the dreams left off and the real began. He was vaguely conscious of his left foot being tied to the right bedpost, of a lock of his hair being cut off and burned on the hearth, and of a low monotonous chant that seemed to rise and fall with the flicker of the flames. And when he cried out with the pain in his sleep, a kindly black face bent over him, and the chant changed into a soothing murmur: "Nebber you min', sonny; Aunt Melvy gwine git dem cunjers out. She gwine stay by you. You hol' on to her han', an' go to sleep; she'll git dem old cunjers out." CHAPTER VI HOLLIS FARM Clayton was an easy-going, prosperous old town which, in the enthusiasm of youth, had started to climb the long hill to the north, but growing indolent with age, | fer | How many times the word 'fer' appears in the text? | 3 |
ventured a step nearer and continued his observations. As he did so, he made a discovery. The soft white of her cheek was gradually becoming pinker and pinker; the color which began under her lace collar stole up and up until it reached her eyes, which still gazed determinedly before her. Sandy admired it as a traveler admires a sunrise, and with as little idea of having caused it. The line of passengers moved slowly forward, and his heart sank. Suddenly his eyes fell upon the little hand-bag which she carried. On one end, in small white letters, was: "Ruth Nelson, Kentucky, U.S.A." He watched her until she was lost to view, then he turned eagerly back into the crowd. Elbowing his way forward, he seized Ricks by the arm. "Hi, there!" he cried; "I've changed me mind. I'm goin' with you to Kentucky!" So this impetuous knight errant enlisted under the will-o'-the-wisp love, and started joyously forth upon his quest. CHAPTER III THE CURSE OF WEALTH It is an oft-proved adage that for ten who can stand adversity there is but one who can stand prosperity. Sandy, alas! was no exception to any rule which went to prove the frailty of human nature. The sudden acquisition of ten dollars cast him into a whirlpool of temptation from which he made little effort to escape. "I ain't goin' on to-day," announced Ricks. "I'm goin' to lay in my goods for peddlin'. I reckon you kin come along of me." Sandy accepted a long and strong cigar, tilted his hat, and unconsciously caught Ricks's slouching gait as they went down the street. After all, it was rather pleasant to associate with sophistication. "We'll git on the outside of a little dinner," said Ricks; "and I'll mosey round in the stores awhile, then I'll take you to a show or two. It's a mighty good thing for you that you got me along." Sandy thought so too. He cheerfully stood treat for the rest of the day, and felt that it was small return for Ricks's condescension. "How much you got left?" asked Ricks, that night, as they stopped under a street light to take stock. Sandy held out a couple of dollars and a fifty-cent piece. "Enough to put on the eyes of two and a half dead men," he said as he curiously eyed the strange money. "One, two,--two and a half," counted Ricks. "Shillings?" asked Sandy, amazed. Ricks nodded. "And have I blowed all that to-day?" "What of it?" asked Ricks. "I seen a bloke onct what lit his cigar with a bill like the one you had!" "But the doctor said it was two pounds," insisted Sandy, incredulously. He did not realize the expense of a personally conducted tour of the Bowery. "Well, it's went," said Ricks, resignedly. "You can't count on settin' up biz with what's left." Sandy's brows clouded, and he shifted his position restlessly. "Now I ax yerself, Ricks, what'u'd you do?" he said. "Me? I don't give advice to nobody. But effen it was me I'd know mighty quick what to do." "What?" said Sandy, eagerly. "Buy a dawg." "A dog? I ain't goin' blind." "Lor'! but you're a softhorn," said Ricks, contemptuously. "I s'pose you'd count on leadin' him round by a pink ribbon." "Oh, you mean a fighter?" "Sure. My last dawg could do ever'thing in sight. She was so game she went after herself in a lookin'-glass and got kilt. Oh, they's money in dawgs, and I knows how to make 'em win ever' time." Sandy, tired as he was from the day's excitement, insisted upon going in search of one at once. He already had visions of becoming the proud owner of a canine champion that would put him immediately into the position of lighting his cigar with a two-pound note. The first three weeks of their experience on the road went far to realize their expectations. The bulldog, which had been bought in partnership, proved a conquering hero. Through the long summer days the boys tramped over the country, peddling their wares, and by night they conducted sundry unlawful encounters wherever an opponent could be found. Sandy enjoyed the peddling. It was astonishing what friendly sociability and confidential intimacy were established by the sale of blue suspenders and pink soap. He left a line of smiling testimonials in his wake. But if the days were proving satisfactory, so much could not be said of the nights. Even the phenomenal luck that followed his dog failed to keep up his enthusiasm. "You ain't a nachrul sport," complained Ricks. "That's your trouble. When the last fight was on, you set on the fence and listened at a' ole idiot scrapin' a fiddle down in the valley." Sandy made a feeble defense, but he knew in his soul it was so. Affairs reached a climax one night in an old barn on the outskirts of a town. A fight was about to begin when Sandy discovered Ricks judiciously administering a sedative to the enemy's dog. Then understanding dawned upon him, and his rage was elemental. With a valor that lacked the better part of discretion, he hurled himself through the crowd and fell upon Ricks. An hour later, bruised, bloody, and vanquished, he stumbled along through the dreary night. Hot with rage and defeat, utterly ignorant of his whereabouts, his one friend turned foe, he was indeed in sorry plight. He climbed over the fence and lay face downward in the long, cool grass, stretching his bruised and aching body along the ground. A gentle night wind rustled above him, and by and by a star peeped out, then another and another. Before he knew it, he was listening to the frogs and katydids, and wondering what they were talking about. He ceased to think about Ricks and his woes, and gave himself up to the delicious, drowsy peace that was all about him. For, child of nature that he was, he had turned to the only mother he knew. CHAPTER IV SIDE-TRACKED The next morning, at the nearest railroad station, an irate cattleman was trying to hire some one to take charge of a car of live stock which was on its way to a great exposition in a neighboring city. The man he had counted on had not appeared, and the train was about due. As he was turning away in desperation he felt a tug at his elbow. Looking around, he saw a queer figure with a countenance that resembled a first attempt at a charcoal sketch from life: one cheek was larger than the other, the mouth was sadly out of drawing, the eyes shone out from among the bruises like the sun from behind the clouds. But if the features were disfigured, the smile was none the less courageous. Sandy had found a friendly sympathizer at a neighboring farm-house, had been given a good breakfast, had made his toilet, and was ready for the next round in the fight of life. "I'll be doin' yer job, sir, whatever it is," he said pleasantly. The man eyed him with misgiving, but his need was urgent. "All you have to do is to stay in the car and look after the cattle. My man will meet you when you reach the city. Do you think you can do it?" "Just keep company with the cows?" cried Sandy. "Sure and I can!" So the bargain was struck, and that night found him in the great city with a dollar in his pocket and a promise of work in the morning. Tired and sore from the experiences of the night before, he sought a cheap lodging-house near by. A hook-nosed woman, carrying a smoking lamp, conducted him to a room under the eaves. It was small and suffocating. He involuntarily lifted his hands and touched the ceiling. "It's like a boilin' potato I feel," he said; "and the pot's so little and the lid so tight!" He went to the window, and taking out the nail that held down the sash, pushed it up. Below him lay the great, bustling city, cabs and cars in constant motion, long lines of blazing lights marking the thoroughfares, the thunder of trains in the big station, and above and below and through it all a dull monotonous roar, like the faraway unceasing cry of a hungry beast. He sank on his knees by the window, and a restless, nervous look came into his eyes. "It presses in, too," he thought. "It's all crowdin' over me. I'm just me by myself, all alone." A tear made a white course down his grimy cheek, then another and another. He brushed them impatiently away with the cap he still held in his hand. Rising abruptly, he turned away from the window, and the hot air of the room again smote him. The smoking lamp had blackened the chimney, and as he bent to turn it down, he caught his reflection in a small mirror over the table. What the bruises and swelling had left undone the cheap mirror completed. He started back. Was that the boy he knew as himself? Was that Sandy Kilday who had come to America to seek his fortune? He stared in a sort of fascinated horror at that other boy in the mirror. Before he had been afraid to be by himself, now he was afraid of himself. He seized his cap, and blowing out the lamp, plunged down four flights of steep narrow steps and out into the street. A number of people were crowding into a street-car marked "Exposition." Sandy, ever a straw in the current, joined them. Once more down among his fellow-men, he began to feel more comfortable. He cheerfully paid his entrance fee with one of the two silver coins in his pocket. The first building he entered was the art gallery, and the first picture that caught his eye held him spellbound. He sat before it all the evening with fascinated eyes, devouring every detail and oblivious to the curious interest he was attracting; for the huge canvas represented the Knights of the Round Table, and he had at last found friends. All the way back he thought about the picture; it was not until he reached his room that the former loneliness returned. But even then it was not for long. A pair of yellow eyes peered around the window-sill, and a plaintive "meow" begged for admittance. It was plainly Providence that guided that thin and ill-treated kitten to Sandy's window. The welcome it received must have completely restored its shaken faith in human nature. Tired as he was, Sandy went out and bought some milk. He wanted to establish a firm friendship; for if he was to stay in this lonely city, he must have something to love, if only a prodigal kitten of doubtful pedigree. During the long, hot days that followed Sandy worked faithfully at the depot. The regular hours and confinement seemed doubly irksome after the bohemian life on the road. The Exposition was his salvation. No sacrifice seemed too great to enable him to get beyond that magic gate. For the "Knights of the Round Table" was but the beginning of miles and miles of wonderful pictures. He even bought a catalogue, and, prompted by a natural curiosity for anything that interested him, learned the names of the artists he liked best, and the bits of biography attached to each. He would recite these to the yellow kitten when he got back to his little hot-box of a room. One night the art gallery was closed, and he went into another big building where a crowd of people were seated. At one end of it was a great pipe-organ, and after a while some one began to play. With his cap tightly grasped in both hands, he tiptoed down the center aisle and stood breathlessly drinking in the wonderful tones that seemed to be coming from his own heart. "Get out of the way, boy," said an usher. "You are blocking the aisle." A queer-appearing lady who looked like a man touched his elbow. "Here's a seat," she said in a deep voice. "Thank you, sir," said Sandy, absently. He scarcely knew whether he was sitting or standing. He only wanted to be let alone, so that he could listen to those strange, beautiful sounds that made a shiver of joy go down his back. Art had had her day; it was Music's turn. When the last number had been played, he turned to the queer lady: "Do they do it every night?" She smiled at his enthusiasm: "Wednesdays and Saturdays." "Say," said Sandy, confidentially, "if you come first do you save me a seat, and I'll do the same by you." From that time on he decided to be a musician, and he lived on two scanty meals a day in order to attend the concerts. But this exalted scheme of high thinking and plain living soon became irksome. One day, when his loneliness weighed most heavily upon him, he was sent with a message out to the switch-station. As he tramped back along the track he spied a familiar figure ahead of him. There was no mistaking that short, slouching body with the peddler's pack strapped on its back. With a cry of joy, Sandy bounded after Ricks Wilson. He actually hugged him in his joy to be once more with some one he knew. Ricks glanced uneasily at the scar above his eye. Sandy clapped his hand over it and laughed. "It's all right, Ricks; a miss is as good as a mile. I ain't mad any more. It's straight home with me you are goin'; and if we can get the two feet of you into me bit of a room, we'll have a dinner that's fit for a king." On the way they laid in a supply of provisions, Sandy even going to the expense of a bottle of beer for Ricks. The yellow kitten arched her back and showed general signs of hostility when the stranger was introduced. But her unfriendly demonstrations were ignored. Ricks was the honored guest, and Sandy extended to him the full hospitality of the establishment. "Put your pack on the floor and yerself in the chair, and I'll get ye filled up in the blink of an eyelash. Don't be mindin' the cat, Ricks. She's just lettin' on she don't take to you. She give me the wink on the sly." Ricks, expanding under the influence of food and drink, became eloquent. He recounted courageous adventures of the past, and outlined marvelous schemes for the future, by which he was going to make a short cut to fame and glory. When it was time for him to go, Sandy heaved a sigh of regret. For two hours he had been beguiled by Ricks's romances, and now he had to go back to the humdrum duties at the depot, and receive a sound rating for his belated appearance. "Which way might you be goin', Ricks?" he asked wistfully. "Same place I started fer," said Ricks. "Kentucky." The will-o'-the-wisp, which had been hiding his light, suddenly swung it full in the eyes of Sandy. Once more he saw the little maid of his dreams, and once more he threw discretion to the winds and followed the vision. Hastily collecting his few possessions, he rolled them into a bundle, and slipping the surprised kitten into his pocket, he gladly followed Ricks once more out into the broad green meadows, along the white and shining roads that lead over the hills to Kentucky. CHAPTER V SANDY RETIRES FROM BUSINESS "This here is too blame slow fer me," said Ricks, one chilly night in late September, as he and Sandy huddled against a haystack and settled up their weekly accounts. "Fifty-five cents! Now ain't that a' o'nery dab? Here's a quarter fer you and thirty cents fer me; that's as even as you kin split it." "It's the microscopes that'll be sellin'," said Sandy, hopefully, as he pulled his coat collar about his ears and shivered. "The man as sold 'em to me said they was a great bargain entirely. He thought there was money in 'em." "For him," said Ricks, contemptuously. "It's like the man what gulled us on the penknives. I lay to git even with him, all right." "But he give us the night's lodgin' and some breakfast," said Sandy. Ricks took a long drink from a short bottle, then holding it before him, he said impressively: "A feller could do me ninety-nine good turns, and if he done me one bad one it would wipe 'em all out. I got to git even with anybody what does me dirty, if it takes me all my life." "But don't you forget to remember?" "Not me. I ain't that kind." Sandy leaned wearily against the haystack and tried to shelter himself from the wind. A continued diet of bread and water had made him sensitive to the changes in the weather. "This here grub is kinder hard on yer head-rails," said Ricks, trying to bite through a piece of stale bread. A baker had let them have three loaves for a dime because they were old and hard. Sandy cast a longing look at Ricks's short bottle. It seemed to remedy so many ills, heat or cold, thirst or hunger. But the strict principles applied during his tender years made him hesitate. "I wish we hadn't lost the kitten," he said, feeling the need of a more cheerful companion. "I'm a-goin' to git another dawg," announced Ricks. "I'm sick of this here doin's." "Ain't we goin' to be turfmen?" asked Sandy, who had listened by the hour to thrilling accounts of life on the track, and had accepted Ricks's ambition as his own. "Not on twenty cents per week," growled Ricks. Sandy's heart sank; he knew what a new dog meant. He burrowed in the hay and tried to sleep, but there was a queer pain that seemed to catch hold of his breath whenever he breathed down deep. It rained the next day, and they tramped disconsolately through village after village. They had oil-cloth covers for their baskets, but their own backs were soaked to the skin. Toward evening they came to the top of a hill, from which they could look directly down upon a large town lying comfortably in the crook of a river's elbow. The rain had stopped, and the belated sun, struggling through the clouds, made up for lost time by reflecting itself in every curve of the winding stream, in every puddle along the road, and in every pane of glass that faced the west. "That's a nobby hoss," said Ricks, pointing down the hill. "What's the matter with the feller?" A slight, delicate-looking young man was lying in the road, between the horse and the fence. As the boys came up he stirred and tried to rise. "He's off his nut," said Ricks, starting to pass on; but Sandy stopped. "Get a fall?" he asked. The strange boy shook his head. "I guess I fainted. I must have ridden too hard. I'll be all right in a minute." He leaned his head against a tree and closed his eyes. Sandy eyed him curiously, taking in all the details of his riding-costume down to the short whip with the silver mounting. "I say, Ricks," he called to his companion, who was inspecting the horse, "can't we do somethin' for him?" Ricks reluctantly produced the short bottle. "I'm all right," insisted the boy, "if you'll just give me a lift to the saddle." But his eager eyes followed the bottle, and before Ricks had returned it to his pocket he held out his hand. "I believe I will take a drink if you don't mind." He drained the contents and then handed a coin to Ricks. "Now, if you'll help me," continued the stranger. "There! Thank you very much." "Say, what town is this, anyway?" asked Ricks. "Clayton," said the boy, trying to keep his horse from backing. "Looks like somethin' was doin'," said Ricks. "Circus, I believe." "Then I don't blame your nag for wantin' to go back!" cried Sandy. "Come on, Ricks; let's take in the show!" Half-way down the hill he turned. "Haven't we seen that fellow before, Ricks?" "Not as I knows of. He looked kinder pale and shaky, but you bet yer life he knowed how to hit the bottle." "He was sick," urged Sandy. "An' thirsty," added Ricks, with a smile of superior wisdom. The circus seemed such a timely opportunity to do business that they decided to rent a stand that night and sell their wares on the street corner. Ricks went on into town to arrange matters, while Sandy stopped in a grocery to buy their supper. His interest in the show had been of short duration. He felt listless and tired, something seemed to be buzzing continually in his head, and he shivered in his damp clothes. In the grocery he sat on a barrel and leaned his head against the wall. "What you shivering about?" asked the fat woman behind the counter, as she tied up his small package. "I feel like me skeleton was doin' a jig inside of me," said Sandy through chattering teeth. "Looks to me like you got a chill," said the fat woman. "You wait here, and I'll go git you some hot coffee." She disappeared in the rear of the store, and soon returned with a small coffee-pot and a cup and saucer. Sandy drank two cups and a half, then he asked the price. "Price?" repeated the woman, indignantly. "I reckon you don't know which side of the Ohio River you're on!" Sandy made up in gratitude what she declined in cash, and started on his way. At the corner of Main street and the bridge he found Ricks, who had rented a stand and was already arranging his wares. Sandy knelt on the sidewalk and unpacked his basket. "Only three bars of soap and seventy-five microscopes!" he exclaimed ruefully. "Let's be layin' fine stress on the microscopes, Ricks." "You do the jawin', Sandy. I ain't much on givin' 'em the talk," said Ricks. "Chuck a jolly at 'em and keep 'em hangin' round." As dark came on, trade began. The three bars of soap were sold, and a purple necktie. Sandy saw that public taste must be guided in the proper direction. He stepped up on a box and began eloquently to enumerate the diverse uses of microscopes. At each end of the stand a flaring torch lighted up the scene. The light fell on the careless, laughing faces in front, on Ricks Wilson, black-browed and suspicious, in the rear, and it fell full on Sandy, who stood on high and harangued the crowd. It fell on his broad, straight shoulders and on his shining tumbled hair; but it was not the light of the torch that gave the brightness to his eyes and the flush to his cheek. His head was throbbing, but he felt a curious sense of elation. He felt that he could stand there and talk the rest of his life. He made the crowd listen, he made it laugh, he made it buy. He told stories and sang songs, he coaxed and persuaded, until only a few microscopes were left and the old cigar-box was heavy with silver. "Step right up and take a look at a fly's leg! Every one ought to have a microscope in his home. When you get hard up it will make a dime look like a dollar, and a dollar like a five-dollar gold piece. Step right up! I ain't kiddin' you. Five cents for two looks, and fifteen for the microscope." Suddenly he faltered. At the edge of the crowd he had recognized two faces. They were sensitive slender faces, strangely alike in feature and unlike in expression. The young horseman of the afternoon was impatiently pushing his way through the crowd, while close behind him was a dainty girl with brown eyes slightly lifted at the outer corners, who held back in laughing wonder to watch the scene. "Ricks," said Sandy, lowering his voice unsteadily, "is this Kentucky?" "Yep; we crossed the line to-day." "I can't talk no more," said Sandy. "You'll have to be doin' it. I'm sick." It was not only the fever that was burning in his veins, and making him bury his hot head in his hands and wish he had never been born. It was shame and humiliation, and all because of the look on the face of the girl at the edge of the crowd. He sat in the shadow of the big box and fought his fight. The coffee and the excitement no longer kept him up; he was faint, and his breath came short. Above him he heard Ricks's rasping voice still talking to the few customers who were left. He knew, without glancing up, just how Ricks looked when he said the words; he knew how his teeth pushed his lips back, and how his restless little eyes watched everything at once. A sudden fierce repulsion swept over him for peddling, for Ricks, for himself. "And to think," he whispered, with a sob in his throat, "that I can't ever speak to a girl like that!" Ricks, jubilant over the success of the evening, decided to follow the circus, which was to be in the next town on the following day. "It ain't fur," he said. "We kin push on to-night and be ready to open early in the morning." Sandy, miserable in body and spirit, mechanically obeyed instructions. His head was getting queerer all the time, and he could not remember whether it was day or night. About a mile from Clayton he sank down by the road. "Say, Ricks," he said abruptly; "I'm after quittin' peddlin'." "What you goin' to do?" "I'm goin' to school." If Sandy had announced his intention of putting on baby clothes and being wheeled in a perambulator, Ricks could not have been more astonished. "What?" he asked in genuine doubt. "'Cause I want to be the right sort," burst out Sandy, passionately. "This ain't the way you get to be the right sort." Ricks surveyed him contemptuously. "Look-a here, are you comin' along of me or not?" "I can't," said Sandy, weakly. Ricks shifted his pack, and with never a parting word or a backward look he left his business partner of three months lying by the roadside, and tramped away in the darkness. Sandy started up to follow him; he tried to call, but he had no strength. He lay with his face on the road and talked. He knew there was nobody to listen, but still he kept on, softly talking about microscopes and pink soap, crying out again and again that he couldn't ever speak to a girl like that. After a long while somebody came. At first he thought he must have gone back to the land behind the peat-flames, for it was a great black witch who bent over him, and he instinctively felt about in the grass for the tender, soft hand which he used to press against his cheek. He found instead the hand of the witch herself, and he drew back in terror. "Fer de Lawd sake, honey, what's de matter wif you?" asked a kindly voice. Sandy opened his eyes. A tall old negro woman bent over him, her head tied up in a turban, and a shawl about her shoulders. "Did you git runned over?" she asked, peering down at him anxiously. Sandy tried to explain, but it was all the old mixture of soap and microscopes and never being able to speak to her. He knew he was talking at random, but he could not say the things he thought. "Where'd you come from, boy?" "Curragh Chase, Limerick," murmured Sandy. "'Fore de Lawd, he's done been cunjered!" cried the old woman, aghast. "I'll git it outen of you, chile. You jus' come home wif yer Aunt Melvy; she'll take keer of you. Put yer arm on my shoulder; dat's right. Don't you mind where you gwine at. I got yer bundle. It ain't fur. Hit's dat little house a-hangin' on de side of de hill. Dey calls it 'Who'd 'a' Thought It,' 'ca'se you nebber would 'a' thought of puttin' a house dere. Dat's right; lean on yer mammy. I'll git dem old cunjers outen you." Thus encouraged and supported, Sandy stumbled on through the dark, up a hillside that seemed never to end, across a bridge, then into a tiny log cabin, where he dropped exhausted. Off and on during the night he knew that there was a fire in the room, and that strange things were happening to him. But it was all so queer and unnatural that he did not know where the dreams left off and the real began. He was vaguely conscious of his left foot being tied to the right bedpost, of a lock of his hair being cut off and burned on the hearth, and of a low monotonous chant that seemed to rise and fall with the flicker of the flames. And when he cried out with the pain in his sleep, a kindly black face bent over him, and the chant changed into a soothing murmur: "Nebber you min', sonny; Aunt Melvy gwine git dem cunjers out. She gwine stay by you. You hol' on to her han', an' go to sleep; she'll git dem old cunjers out." CHAPTER VI HOLLIS FARM Clayton was an easy-going, prosperous old town which, in the enthusiasm of youth, had started to climb the long hill to the north, but growing indolent with age, | figure | How many times the word 'figure' appears in the text? | 2 |
ventured a step nearer and continued his observations. As he did so, he made a discovery. The soft white of her cheek was gradually becoming pinker and pinker; the color which began under her lace collar stole up and up until it reached her eyes, which still gazed determinedly before her. Sandy admired it as a traveler admires a sunrise, and with as little idea of having caused it. The line of passengers moved slowly forward, and his heart sank. Suddenly his eyes fell upon the little hand-bag which she carried. On one end, in small white letters, was: "Ruth Nelson, Kentucky, U.S.A." He watched her until she was lost to view, then he turned eagerly back into the crowd. Elbowing his way forward, he seized Ricks by the arm. "Hi, there!" he cried; "I've changed me mind. I'm goin' with you to Kentucky!" So this impetuous knight errant enlisted under the will-o'-the-wisp love, and started joyously forth upon his quest. CHAPTER III THE CURSE OF WEALTH It is an oft-proved adage that for ten who can stand adversity there is but one who can stand prosperity. Sandy, alas! was no exception to any rule which went to prove the frailty of human nature. The sudden acquisition of ten dollars cast him into a whirlpool of temptation from which he made little effort to escape. "I ain't goin' on to-day," announced Ricks. "I'm goin' to lay in my goods for peddlin'. I reckon you kin come along of me." Sandy accepted a long and strong cigar, tilted his hat, and unconsciously caught Ricks's slouching gait as they went down the street. After all, it was rather pleasant to associate with sophistication. "We'll git on the outside of a little dinner," said Ricks; "and I'll mosey round in the stores awhile, then I'll take you to a show or two. It's a mighty good thing for you that you got me along." Sandy thought so too. He cheerfully stood treat for the rest of the day, and felt that it was small return for Ricks's condescension. "How much you got left?" asked Ricks, that night, as they stopped under a street light to take stock. Sandy held out a couple of dollars and a fifty-cent piece. "Enough to put on the eyes of two and a half dead men," he said as he curiously eyed the strange money. "One, two,--two and a half," counted Ricks. "Shillings?" asked Sandy, amazed. Ricks nodded. "And have I blowed all that to-day?" "What of it?" asked Ricks. "I seen a bloke onct what lit his cigar with a bill like the one you had!" "But the doctor said it was two pounds," insisted Sandy, incredulously. He did not realize the expense of a personally conducted tour of the Bowery. "Well, it's went," said Ricks, resignedly. "You can't count on settin' up biz with what's left." Sandy's brows clouded, and he shifted his position restlessly. "Now I ax yerself, Ricks, what'u'd you do?" he said. "Me? I don't give advice to nobody. But effen it was me I'd know mighty quick what to do." "What?" said Sandy, eagerly. "Buy a dawg." "A dog? I ain't goin' blind." "Lor'! but you're a softhorn," said Ricks, contemptuously. "I s'pose you'd count on leadin' him round by a pink ribbon." "Oh, you mean a fighter?" "Sure. My last dawg could do ever'thing in sight. She was so game she went after herself in a lookin'-glass and got kilt. Oh, they's money in dawgs, and I knows how to make 'em win ever' time." Sandy, tired as he was from the day's excitement, insisted upon going in search of one at once. He already had visions of becoming the proud owner of a canine champion that would put him immediately into the position of lighting his cigar with a two-pound note. The first three weeks of their experience on the road went far to realize their expectations. The bulldog, which had been bought in partnership, proved a conquering hero. Through the long summer days the boys tramped over the country, peddling their wares, and by night they conducted sundry unlawful encounters wherever an opponent could be found. Sandy enjoyed the peddling. It was astonishing what friendly sociability and confidential intimacy were established by the sale of blue suspenders and pink soap. He left a line of smiling testimonials in his wake. But if the days were proving satisfactory, so much could not be said of the nights. Even the phenomenal luck that followed his dog failed to keep up his enthusiasm. "You ain't a nachrul sport," complained Ricks. "That's your trouble. When the last fight was on, you set on the fence and listened at a' ole idiot scrapin' a fiddle down in the valley." Sandy made a feeble defense, but he knew in his soul it was so. Affairs reached a climax one night in an old barn on the outskirts of a town. A fight was about to begin when Sandy discovered Ricks judiciously administering a sedative to the enemy's dog. Then understanding dawned upon him, and his rage was elemental. With a valor that lacked the better part of discretion, he hurled himself through the crowd and fell upon Ricks. An hour later, bruised, bloody, and vanquished, he stumbled along through the dreary night. Hot with rage and defeat, utterly ignorant of his whereabouts, his one friend turned foe, he was indeed in sorry plight. He climbed over the fence and lay face downward in the long, cool grass, stretching his bruised and aching body along the ground. A gentle night wind rustled above him, and by and by a star peeped out, then another and another. Before he knew it, he was listening to the frogs and katydids, and wondering what they were talking about. He ceased to think about Ricks and his woes, and gave himself up to the delicious, drowsy peace that was all about him. For, child of nature that he was, he had turned to the only mother he knew. CHAPTER IV SIDE-TRACKED The next morning, at the nearest railroad station, an irate cattleman was trying to hire some one to take charge of a car of live stock which was on its way to a great exposition in a neighboring city. The man he had counted on had not appeared, and the train was about due. As he was turning away in desperation he felt a tug at his elbow. Looking around, he saw a queer figure with a countenance that resembled a first attempt at a charcoal sketch from life: one cheek was larger than the other, the mouth was sadly out of drawing, the eyes shone out from among the bruises like the sun from behind the clouds. But if the features were disfigured, the smile was none the less courageous. Sandy had found a friendly sympathizer at a neighboring farm-house, had been given a good breakfast, had made his toilet, and was ready for the next round in the fight of life. "I'll be doin' yer job, sir, whatever it is," he said pleasantly. The man eyed him with misgiving, but his need was urgent. "All you have to do is to stay in the car and look after the cattle. My man will meet you when you reach the city. Do you think you can do it?" "Just keep company with the cows?" cried Sandy. "Sure and I can!" So the bargain was struck, and that night found him in the great city with a dollar in his pocket and a promise of work in the morning. Tired and sore from the experiences of the night before, he sought a cheap lodging-house near by. A hook-nosed woman, carrying a smoking lamp, conducted him to a room under the eaves. It was small and suffocating. He involuntarily lifted his hands and touched the ceiling. "It's like a boilin' potato I feel," he said; "and the pot's so little and the lid so tight!" He went to the window, and taking out the nail that held down the sash, pushed it up. Below him lay the great, bustling city, cabs and cars in constant motion, long lines of blazing lights marking the thoroughfares, the thunder of trains in the big station, and above and below and through it all a dull monotonous roar, like the faraway unceasing cry of a hungry beast. He sank on his knees by the window, and a restless, nervous look came into his eyes. "It presses in, too," he thought. "It's all crowdin' over me. I'm just me by myself, all alone." A tear made a white course down his grimy cheek, then another and another. He brushed them impatiently away with the cap he still held in his hand. Rising abruptly, he turned away from the window, and the hot air of the room again smote him. The smoking lamp had blackened the chimney, and as he bent to turn it down, he caught his reflection in a small mirror over the table. What the bruises and swelling had left undone the cheap mirror completed. He started back. Was that the boy he knew as himself? Was that Sandy Kilday who had come to America to seek his fortune? He stared in a sort of fascinated horror at that other boy in the mirror. Before he had been afraid to be by himself, now he was afraid of himself. He seized his cap, and blowing out the lamp, plunged down four flights of steep narrow steps and out into the street. A number of people were crowding into a street-car marked "Exposition." Sandy, ever a straw in the current, joined them. Once more down among his fellow-men, he began to feel more comfortable. He cheerfully paid his entrance fee with one of the two silver coins in his pocket. The first building he entered was the art gallery, and the first picture that caught his eye held him spellbound. He sat before it all the evening with fascinated eyes, devouring every detail and oblivious to the curious interest he was attracting; for the huge canvas represented the Knights of the Round Table, and he had at last found friends. All the way back he thought about the picture; it was not until he reached his room that the former loneliness returned. But even then it was not for long. A pair of yellow eyes peered around the window-sill, and a plaintive "meow" begged for admittance. It was plainly Providence that guided that thin and ill-treated kitten to Sandy's window. The welcome it received must have completely restored its shaken faith in human nature. Tired as he was, Sandy went out and bought some milk. He wanted to establish a firm friendship; for if he was to stay in this lonely city, he must have something to love, if only a prodigal kitten of doubtful pedigree. During the long, hot days that followed Sandy worked faithfully at the depot. The regular hours and confinement seemed doubly irksome after the bohemian life on the road. The Exposition was his salvation. No sacrifice seemed too great to enable him to get beyond that magic gate. For the "Knights of the Round Table" was but the beginning of miles and miles of wonderful pictures. He even bought a catalogue, and, prompted by a natural curiosity for anything that interested him, learned the names of the artists he liked best, and the bits of biography attached to each. He would recite these to the yellow kitten when he got back to his little hot-box of a room. One night the art gallery was closed, and he went into another big building where a crowd of people were seated. At one end of it was a great pipe-organ, and after a while some one began to play. With his cap tightly grasped in both hands, he tiptoed down the center aisle and stood breathlessly drinking in the wonderful tones that seemed to be coming from his own heart. "Get out of the way, boy," said an usher. "You are blocking the aisle." A queer-appearing lady who looked like a man touched his elbow. "Here's a seat," she said in a deep voice. "Thank you, sir," said Sandy, absently. He scarcely knew whether he was sitting or standing. He only wanted to be let alone, so that he could listen to those strange, beautiful sounds that made a shiver of joy go down his back. Art had had her day; it was Music's turn. When the last number had been played, he turned to the queer lady: "Do they do it every night?" She smiled at his enthusiasm: "Wednesdays and Saturdays." "Say," said Sandy, confidentially, "if you come first do you save me a seat, and I'll do the same by you." From that time on he decided to be a musician, and he lived on two scanty meals a day in order to attend the concerts. But this exalted scheme of high thinking and plain living soon became irksome. One day, when his loneliness weighed most heavily upon him, he was sent with a message out to the switch-station. As he tramped back along the track he spied a familiar figure ahead of him. There was no mistaking that short, slouching body with the peddler's pack strapped on its back. With a cry of joy, Sandy bounded after Ricks Wilson. He actually hugged him in his joy to be once more with some one he knew. Ricks glanced uneasily at the scar above his eye. Sandy clapped his hand over it and laughed. "It's all right, Ricks; a miss is as good as a mile. I ain't mad any more. It's straight home with me you are goin'; and if we can get the two feet of you into me bit of a room, we'll have a dinner that's fit for a king." On the way they laid in a supply of provisions, Sandy even going to the expense of a bottle of beer for Ricks. The yellow kitten arched her back and showed general signs of hostility when the stranger was introduced. But her unfriendly demonstrations were ignored. Ricks was the honored guest, and Sandy extended to him the full hospitality of the establishment. "Put your pack on the floor and yerself in the chair, and I'll get ye filled up in the blink of an eyelash. Don't be mindin' the cat, Ricks. She's just lettin' on she don't take to you. She give me the wink on the sly." Ricks, expanding under the influence of food and drink, became eloquent. He recounted courageous adventures of the past, and outlined marvelous schemes for the future, by which he was going to make a short cut to fame and glory. When it was time for him to go, Sandy heaved a sigh of regret. For two hours he had been beguiled by Ricks's romances, and now he had to go back to the humdrum duties at the depot, and receive a sound rating for his belated appearance. "Which way might you be goin', Ricks?" he asked wistfully. "Same place I started fer," said Ricks. "Kentucky." The will-o'-the-wisp, which had been hiding his light, suddenly swung it full in the eyes of Sandy. Once more he saw the little maid of his dreams, and once more he threw discretion to the winds and followed the vision. Hastily collecting his few possessions, he rolled them into a bundle, and slipping the surprised kitten into his pocket, he gladly followed Ricks once more out into the broad green meadows, along the white and shining roads that lead over the hills to Kentucky. CHAPTER V SANDY RETIRES FROM BUSINESS "This here is too blame slow fer me," said Ricks, one chilly night in late September, as he and Sandy huddled against a haystack and settled up their weekly accounts. "Fifty-five cents! Now ain't that a' o'nery dab? Here's a quarter fer you and thirty cents fer me; that's as even as you kin split it." "It's the microscopes that'll be sellin'," said Sandy, hopefully, as he pulled his coat collar about his ears and shivered. "The man as sold 'em to me said they was a great bargain entirely. He thought there was money in 'em." "For him," said Ricks, contemptuously. "It's like the man what gulled us on the penknives. I lay to git even with him, all right." "But he give us the night's lodgin' and some breakfast," said Sandy. Ricks took a long drink from a short bottle, then holding it before him, he said impressively: "A feller could do me ninety-nine good turns, and if he done me one bad one it would wipe 'em all out. I got to git even with anybody what does me dirty, if it takes me all my life." "But don't you forget to remember?" "Not me. I ain't that kind." Sandy leaned wearily against the haystack and tried to shelter himself from the wind. A continued diet of bread and water had made him sensitive to the changes in the weather. "This here grub is kinder hard on yer head-rails," said Ricks, trying to bite through a piece of stale bread. A baker had let them have three loaves for a dime because they were old and hard. Sandy cast a longing look at Ricks's short bottle. It seemed to remedy so many ills, heat or cold, thirst or hunger. But the strict principles applied during his tender years made him hesitate. "I wish we hadn't lost the kitten," he said, feeling the need of a more cheerful companion. "I'm a-goin' to git another dawg," announced Ricks. "I'm sick of this here doin's." "Ain't we goin' to be turfmen?" asked Sandy, who had listened by the hour to thrilling accounts of life on the track, and had accepted Ricks's ambition as his own. "Not on twenty cents per week," growled Ricks. Sandy's heart sank; he knew what a new dog meant. He burrowed in the hay and tried to sleep, but there was a queer pain that seemed to catch hold of his breath whenever he breathed down deep. It rained the next day, and they tramped disconsolately through village after village. They had oil-cloth covers for their baskets, but their own backs were soaked to the skin. Toward evening they came to the top of a hill, from which they could look directly down upon a large town lying comfortably in the crook of a river's elbow. The rain had stopped, and the belated sun, struggling through the clouds, made up for lost time by reflecting itself in every curve of the winding stream, in every puddle along the road, and in every pane of glass that faced the west. "That's a nobby hoss," said Ricks, pointing down the hill. "What's the matter with the feller?" A slight, delicate-looking young man was lying in the road, between the horse and the fence. As the boys came up he stirred and tried to rise. "He's off his nut," said Ricks, starting to pass on; but Sandy stopped. "Get a fall?" he asked. The strange boy shook his head. "I guess I fainted. I must have ridden too hard. I'll be all right in a minute." He leaned his head against a tree and closed his eyes. Sandy eyed him curiously, taking in all the details of his riding-costume down to the short whip with the silver mounting. "I say, Ricks," he called to his companion, who was inspecting the horse, "can't we do somethin' for him?" Ricks reluctantly produced the short bottle. "I'm all right," insisted the boy, "if you'll just give me a lift to the saddle." But his eager eyes followed the bottle, and before Ricks had returned it to his pocket he held out his hand. "I believe I will take a drink if you don't mind." He drained the contents and then handed a coin to Ricks. "Now, if you'll help me," continued the stranger. "There! Thank you very much." "Say, what town is this, anyway?" asked Ricks. "Clayton," said the boy, trying to keep his horse from backing. "Looks like somethin' was doin'," said Ricks. "Circus, I believe." "Then I don't blame your nag for wantin' to go back!" cried Sandy. "Come on, Ricks; let's take in the show!" Half-way down the hill he turned. "Haven't we seen that fellow before, Ricks?" "Not as I knows of. He looked kinder pale and shaky, but you bet yer life he knowed how to hit the bottle." "He was sick," urged Sandy. "An' thirsty," added Ricks, with a smile of superior wisdom. The circus seemed such a timely opportunity to do business that they decided to rent a stand that night and sell their wares on the street corner. Ricks went on into town to arrange matters, while Sandy stopped in a grocery to buy their supper. His interest in the show had been of short duration. He felt listless and tired, something seemed to be buzzing continually in his head, and he shivered in his damp clothes. In the grocery he sat on a barrel and leaned his head against the wall. "What you shivering about?" asked the fat woman behind the counter, as she tied up his small package. "I feel like me skeleton was doin' a jig inside of me," said Sandy through chattering teeth. "Looks to me like you got a chill," said the fat woman. "You wait here, and I'll go git you some hot coffee." She disappeared in the rear of the store, and soon returned with a small coffee-pot and a cup and saucer. Sandy drank two cups and a half, then he asked the price. "Price?" repeated the woman, indignantly. "I reckon you don't know which side of the Ohio River you're on!" Sandy made up in gratitude what she declined in cash, and started on his way. At the corner of Main street and the bridge he found Ricks, who had rented a stand and was already arranging his wares. Sandy knelt on the sidewalk and unpacked his basket. "Only three bars of soap and seventy-five microscopes!" he exclaimed ruefully. "Let's be layin' fine stress on the microscopes, Ricks." "You do the jawin', Sandy. I ain't much on givin' 'em the talk," said Ricks. "Chuck a jolly at 'em and keep 'em hangin' round." As dark came on, trade began. The three bars of soap were sold, and a purple necktie. Sandy saw that public taste must be guided in the proper direction. He stepped up on a box and began eloquently to enumerate the diverse uses of microscopes. At each end of the stand a flaring torch lighted up the scene. The light fell on the careless, laughing faces in front, on Ricks Wilson, black-browed and suspicious, in the rear, and it fell full on Sandy, who stood on high and harangued the crowd. It fell on his broad, straight shoulders and on his shining tumbled hair; but it was not the light of the torch that gave the brightness to his eyes and the flush to his cheek. His head was throbbing, but he felt a curious sense of elation. He felt that he could stand there and talk the rest of his life. He made the crowd listen, he made it laugh, he made it buy. He told stories and sang songs, he coaxed and persuaded, until only a few microscopes were left and the old cigar-box was heavy with silver. "Step right up and take a look at a fly's leg! Every one ought to have a microscope in his home. When you get hard up it will make a dime look like a dollar, and a dollar like a five-dollar gold piece. Step right up! I ain't kiddin' you. Five cents for two looks, and fifteen for the microscope." Suddenly he faltered. At the edge of the crowd he had recognized two faces. They were sensitive slender faces, strangely alike in feature and unlike in expression. The young horseman of the afternoon was impatiently pushing his way through the crowd, while close behind him was a dainty girl with brown eyes slightly lifted at the outer corners, who held back in laughing wonder to watch the scene. "Ricks," said Sandy, lowering his voice unsteadily, "is this Kentucky?" "Yep; we crossed the line to-day." "I can't talk no more," said Sandy. "You'll have to be doin' it. I'm sick." It was not only the fever that was burning in his veins, and making him bury his hot head in his hands and wish he had never been born. It was shame and humiliation, and all because of the look on the face of the girl at the edge of the crowd. He sat in the shadow of the big box and fought his fight. The coffee and the excitement no longer kept him up; he was faint, and his breath came short. Above him he heard Ricks's rasping voice still talking to the few customers who were left. He knew, without glancing up, just how Ricks looked when he said the words; he knew how his teeth pushed his lips back, and how his restless little eyes watched everything at once. A sudden fierce repulsion swept over him for peddling, for Ricks, for himself. "And to think," he whispered, with a sob in his throat, "that I can't ever speak to a girl like that!" Ricks, jubilant over the success of the evening, decided to follow the circus, which was to be in the next town on the following day. "It ain't fur," he said. "We kin push on to-night and be ready to open early in the morning." Sandy, miserable in body and spirit, mechanically obeyed instructions. His head was getting queerer all the time, and he could not remember whether it was day or night. About a mile from Clayton he sank down by the road. "Say, Ricks," he said abruptly; "I'm after quittin' peddlin'." "What you goin' to do?" "I'm goin' to school." If Sandy had announced his intention of putting on baby clothes and being wheeled in a perambulator, Ricks could not have been more astonished. "What?" he asked in genuine doubt. "'Cause I want to be the right sort," burst out Sandy, passionately. "This ain't the way you get to be the right sort." Ricks surveyed him contemptuously. "Look-a here, are you comin' along of me or not?" "I can't," said Sandy, weakly. Ricks shifted his pack, and with never a parting word or a backward look he left his business partner of three months lying by the roadside, and tramped away in the darkness. Sandy started up to follow him; he tried to call, but he had no strength. He lay with his face on the road and talked. He knew there was nobody to listen, but still he kept on, softly talking about microscopes and pink soap, crying out again and again that he couldn't ever speak to a girl like that. After a long while somebody came. At first he thought he must have gone back to the land behind the peat-flames, for it was a great black witch who bent over him, and he instinctively felt about in the grass for the tender, soft hand which he used to press against his cheek. He found instead the hand of the witch herself, and he drew back in terror. "Fer de Lawd sake, honey, what's de matter wif you?" asked a kindly voice. Sandy opened his eyes. A tall old negro woman bent over him, her head tied up in a turban, and a shawl about her shoulders. "Did you git runned over?" she asked, peering down at him anxiously. Sandy tried to explain, but it was all the old mixture of soap and microscopes and never being able to speak to her. He knew he was talking at random, but he could not say the things he thought. "Where'd you come from, boy?" "Curragh Chase, Limerick," murmured Sandy. "'Fore de Lawd, he's done been cunjered!" cried the old woman, aghast. "I'll git it outen of you, chile. You jus' come home wif yer Aunt Melvy; she'll take keer of you. Put yer arm on my shoulder; dat's right. Don't you mind where you gwine at. I got yer bundle. It ain't fur. Hit's dat little house a-hangin' on de side of de hill. Dey calls it 'Who'd 'a' Thought It,' 'ca'se you nebber would 'a' thought of puttin' a house dere. Dat's right; lean on yer mammy. I'll git dem old cunjers outen you." Thus encouraged and supported, Sandy stumbled on through the dark, up a hillside that seemed never to end, across a bridge, then into a tiny log cabin, where he dropped exhausted. Off and on during the night he knew that there was a fire in the room, and that strange things were happening to him. But it was all so queer and unnatural that he did not know where the dreams left off and the real began. He was vaguely conscious of his left foot being tied to the right bedpost, of a lock of his hair being cut off and burned on the hearth, and of a low monotonous chant that seemed to rise and fall with the flicker of the flames. And when he cried out with the pain in his sleep, a kindly black face bent over him, and the chant changed into a soothing murmur: "Nebber you min', sonny; Aunt Melvy gwine git dem cunjers out. She gwine stay by you. You hol' on to her han', an' go to sleep; she'll git dem old cunjers out." CHAPTER VI HOLLIS FARM Clayton was an easy-going, prosperous old town which, in the enthusiasm of youth, had started to climb the long hill to the north, but growing indolent with age, | me | How many times the word 'me' appears in the text? | 3 |
ventured a step nearer and continued his observations. As he did so, he made a discovery. The soft white of her cheek was gradually becoming pinker and pinker; the color which began under her lace collar stole up and up until it reached her eyes, which still gazed determinedly before her. Sandy admired it as a traveler admires a sunrise, and with as little idea of having caused it. The line of passengers moved slowly forward, and his heart sank. Suddenly his eyes fell upon the little hand-bag which she carried. On one end, in small white letters, was: "Ruth Nelson, Kentucky, U.S.A." He watched her until she was lost to view, then he turned eagerly back into the crowd. Elbowing his way forward, he seized Ricks by the arm. "Hi, there!" he cried; "I've changed me mind. I'm goin' with you to Kentucky!" So this impetuous knight errant enlisted under the will-o'-the-wisp love, and started joyously forth upon his quest. CHAPTER III THE CURSE OF WEALTH It is an oft-proved adage that for ten who can stand adversity there is but one who can stand prosperity. Sandy, alas! was no exception to any rule which went to prove the frailty of human nature. The sudden acquisition of ten dollars cast him into a whirlpool of temptation from which he made little effort to escape. "I ain't goin' on to-day," announced Ricks. "I'm goin' to lay in my goods for peddlin'. I reckon you kin come along of me." Sandy accepted a long and strong cigar, tilted his hat, and unconsciously caught Ricks's slouching gait as they went down the street. After all, it was rather pleasant to associate with sophistication. "We'll git on the outside of a little dinner," said Ricks; "and I'll mosey round in the stores awhile, then I'll take you to a show or two. It's a mighty good thing for you that you got me along." Sandy thought so too. He cheerfully stood treat for the rest of the day, and felt that it was small return for Ricks's condescension. "How much you got left?" asked Ricks, that night, as they stopped under a street light to take stock. Sandy held out a couple of dollars and a fifty-cent piece. "Enough to put on the eyes of two and a half dead men," he said as he curiously eyed the strange money. "One, two,--two and a half," counted Ricks. "Shillings?" asked Sandy, amazed. Ricks nodded. "And have I blowed all that to-day?" "What of it?" asked Ricks. "I seen a bloke onct what lit his cigar with a bill like the one you had!" "But the doctor said it was two pounds," insisted Sandy, incredulously. He did not realize the expense of a personally conducted tour of the Bowery. "Well, it's went," said Ricks, resignedly. "You can't count on settin' up biz with what's left." Sandy's brows clouded, and he shifted his position restlessly. "Now I ax yerself, Ricks, what'u'd you do?" he said. "Me? I don't give advice to nobody. But effen it was me I'd know mighty quick what to do." "What?" said Sandy, eagerly. "Buy a dawg." "A dog? I ain't goin' blind." "Lor'! but you're a softhorn," said Ricks, contemptuously. "I s'pose you'd count on leadin' him round by a pink ribbon." "Oh, you mean a fighter?" "Sure. My last dawg could do ever'thing in sight. She was so game she went after herself in a lookin'-glass and got kilt. Oh, they's money in dawgs, and I knows how to make 'em win ever' time." Sandy, tired as he was from the day's excitement, insisted upon going in search of one at once. He already had visions of becoming the proud owner of a canine champion that would put him immediately into the position of lighting his cigar with a two-pound note. The first three weeks of their experience on the road went far to realize their expectations. The bulldog, which had been bought in partnership, proved a conquering hero. Through the long summer days the boys tramped over the country, peddling their wares, and by night they conducted sundry unlawful encounters wherever an opponent could be found. Sandy enjoyed the peddling. It was astonishing what friendly sociability and confidential intimacy were established by the sale of blue suspenders and pink soap. He left a line of smiling testimonials in his wake. But if the days were proving satisfactory, so much could not be said of the nights. Even the phenomenal luck that followed his dog failed to keep up his enthusiasm. "You ain't a nachrul sport," complained Ricks. "That's your trouble. When the last fight was on, you set on the fence and listened at a' ole idiot scrapin' a fiddle down in the valley." Sandy made a feeble defense, but he knew in his soul it was so. Affairs reached a climax one night in an old barn on the outskirts of a town. A fight was about to begin when Sandy discovered Ricks judiciously administering a sedative to the enemy's dog. Then understanding dawned upon him, and his rage was elemental. With a valor that lacked the better part of discretion, he hurled himself through the crowd and fell upon Ricks. An hour later, bruised, bloody, and vanquished, he stumbled along through the dreary night. Hot with rage and defeat, utterly ignorant of his whereabouts, his one friend turned foe, he was indeed in sorry plight. He climbed over the fence and lay face downward in the long, cool grass, stretching his bruised and aching body along the ground. A gentle night wind rustled above him, and by and by a star peeped out, then another and another. Before he knew it, he was listening to the frogs and katydids, and wondering what they were talking about. He ceased to think about Ricks and his woes, and gave himself up to the delicious, drowsy peace that was all about him. For, child of nature that he was, he had turned to the only mother he knew. CHAPTER IV SIDE-TRACKED The next morning, at the nearest railroad station, an irate cattleman was trying to hire some one to take charge of a car of live stock which was on its way to a great exposition in a neighboring city. The man he had counted on had not appeared, and the train was about due. As he was turning away in desperation he felt a tug at his elbow. Looking around, he saw a queer figure with a countenance that resembled a first attempt at a charcoal sketch from life: one cheek was larger than the other, the mouth was sadly out of drawing, the eyes shone out from among the bruises like the sun from behind the clouds. But if the features were disfigured, the smile was none the less courageous. Sandy had found a friendly sympathizer at a neighboring farm-house, had been given a good breakfast, had made his toilet, and was ready for the next round in the fight of life. "I'll be doin' yer job, sir, whatever it is," he said pleasantly. The man eyed him with misgiving, but his need was urgent. "All you have to do is to stay in the car and look after the cattle. My man will meet you when you reach the city. Do you think you can do it?" "Just keep company with the cows?" cried Sandy. "Sure and I can!" So the bargain was struck, and that night found him in the great city with a dollar in his pocket and a promise of work in the morning. Tired and sore from the experiences of the night before, he sought a cheap lodging-house near by. A hook-nosed woman, carrying a smoking lamp, conducted him to a room under the eaves. It was small and suffocating. He involuntarily lifted his hands and touched the ceiling. "It's like a boilin' potato I feel," he said; "and the pot's so little and the lid so tight!" He went to the window, and taking out the nail that held down the sash, pushed it up. Below him lay the great, bustling city, cabs and cars in constant motion, long lines of blazing lights marking the thoroughfares, the thunder of trains in the big station, and above and below and through it all a dull monotonous roar, like the faraway unceasing cry of a hungry beast. He sank on his knees by the window, and a restless, nervous look came into his eyes. "It presses in, too," he thought. "It's all crowdin' over me. I'm just me by myself, all alone." A tear made a white course down his grimy cheek, then another and another. He brushed them impatiently away with the cap he still held in his hand. Rising abruptly, he turned away from the window, and the hot air of the room again smote him. The smoking lamp had blackened the chimney, and as he bent to turn it down, he caught his reflection in a small mirror over the table. What the bruises and swelling had left undone the cheap mirror completed. He started back. Was that the boy he knew as himself? Was that Sandy Kilday who had come to America to seek his fortune? He stared in a sort of fascinated horror at that other boy in the mirror. Before he had been afraid to be by himself, now he was afraid of himself. He seized his cap, and blowing out the lamp, plunged down four flights of steep narrow steps and out into the street. A number of people were crowding into a street-car marked "Exposition." Sandy, ever a straw in the current, joined them. Once more down among his fellow-men, he began to feel more comfortable. He cheerfully paid his entrance fee with one of the two silver coins in his pocket. The first building he entered was the art gallery, and the first picture that caught his eye held him spellbound. He sat before it all the evening with fascinated eyes, devouring every detail and oblivious to the curious interest he was attracting; for the huge canvas represented the Knights of the Round Table, and he had at last found friends. All the way back he thought about the picture; it was not until he reached his room that the former loneliness returned. But even then it was not for long. A pair of yellow eyes peered around the window-sill, and a plaintive "meow" begged for admittance. It was plainly Providence that guided that thin and ill-treated kitten to Sandy's window. The welcome it received must have completely restored its shaken faith in human nature. Tired as he was, Sandy went out and bought some milk. He wanted to establish a firm friendship; for if he was to stay in this lonely city, he must have something to love, if only a prodigal kitten of doubtful pedigree. During the long, hot days that followed Sandy worked faithfully at the depot. The regular hours and confinement seemed doubly irksome after the bohemian life on the road. The Exposition was his salvation. No sacrifice seemed too great to enable him to get beyond that magic gate. For the "Knights of the Round Table" was but the beginning of miles and miles of wonderful pictures. He even bought a catalogue, and, prompted by a natural curiosity for anything that interested him, learned the names of the artists he liked best, and the bits of biography attached to each. He would recite these to the yellow kitten when he got back to his little hot-box of a room. One night the art gallery was closed, and he went into another big building where a crowd of people were seated. At one end of it was a great pipe-organ, and after a while some one began to play. With his cap tightly grasped in both hands, he tiptoed down the center aisle and stood breathlessly drinking in the wonderful tones that seemed to be coming from his own heart. "Get out of the way, boy," said an usher. "You are blocking the aisle." A queer-appearing lady who looked like a man touched his elbow. "Here's a seat," she said in a deep voice. "Thank you, sir," said Sandy, absently. He scarcely knew whether he was sitting or standing. He only wanted to be let alone, so that he could listen to those strange, beautiful sounds that made a shiver of joy go down his back. Art had had her day; it was Music's turn. When the last number had been played, he turned to the queer lady: "Do they do it every night?" She smiled at his enthusiasm: "Wednesdays and Saturdays." "Say," said Sandy, confidentially, "if you come first do you save me a seat, and I'll do the same by you." From that time on he decided to be a musician, and he lived on two scanty meals a day in order to attend the concerts. But this exalted scheme of high thinking and plain living soon became irksome. One day, when his loneliness weighed most heavily upon him, he was sent with a message out to the switch-station. As he tramped back along the track he spied a familiar figure ahead of him. There was no mistaking that short, slouching body with the peddler's pack strapped on its back. With a cry of joy, Sandy bounded after Ricks Wilson. He actually hugged him in his joy to be once more with some one he knew. Ricks glanced uneasily at the scar above his eye. Sandy clapped his hand over it and laughed. "It's all right, Ricks; a miss is as good as a mile. I ain't mad any more. It's straight home with me you are goin'; and if we can get the two feet of you into me bit of a room, we'll have a dinner that's fit for a king." On the way they laid in a supply of provisions, Sandy even going to the expense of a bottle of beer for Ricks. The yellow kitten arched her back and showed general signs of hostility when the stranger was introduced. But her unfriendly demonstrations were ignored. Ricks was the honored guest, and Sandy extended to him the full hospitality of the establishment. "Put your pack on the floor and yerself in the chair, and I'll get ye filled up in the blink of an eyelash. Don't be mindin' the cat, Ricks. She's just lettin' on she don't take to you. She give me the wink on the sly." Ricks, expanding under the influence of food and drink, became eloquent. He recounted courageous adventures of the past, and outlined marvelous schemes for the future, by which he was going to make a short cut to fame and glory. When it was time for him to go, Sandy heaved a sigh of regret. For two hours he had been beguiled by Ricks's romances, and now he had to go back to the humdrum duties at the depot, and receive a sound rating for his belated appearance. "Which way might you be goin', Ricks?" he asked wistfully. "Same place I started fer," said Ricks. "Kentucky." The will-o'-the-wisp, which had been hiding his light, suddenly swung it full in the eyes of Sandy. Once more he saw the little maid of his dreams, and once more he threw discretion to the winds and followed the vision. Hastily collecting his few possessions, he rolled them into a bundle, and slipping the surprised kitten into his pocket, he gladly followed Ricks once more out into the broad green meadows, along the white and shining roads that lead over the hills to Kentucky. CHAPTER V SANDY RETIRES FROM BUSINESS "This here is too blame slow fer me," said Ricks, one chilly night in late September, as he and Sandy huddled against a haystack and settled up their weekly accounts. "Fifty-five cents! Now ain't that a' o'nery dab? Here's a quarter fer you and thirty cents fer me; that's as even as you kin split it." "It's the microscopes that'll be sellin'," said Sandy, hopefully, as he pulled his coat collar about his ears and shivered. "The man as sold 'em to me said they was a great bargain entirely. He thought there was money in 'em." "For him," said Ricks, contemptuously. "It's like the man what gulled us on the penknives. I lay to git even with him, all right." "But he give us the night's lodgin' and some breakfast," said Sandy. Ricks took a long drink from a short bottle, then holding it before him, he said impressively: "A feller could do me ninety-nine good turns, and if he done me one bad one it would wipe 'em all out. I got to git even with anybody what does me dirty, if it takes me all my life." "But don't you forget to remember?" "Not me. I ain't that kind." Sandy leaned wearily against the haystack and tried to shelter himself from the wind. A continued diet of bread and water had made him sensitive to the changes in the weather. "This here grub is kinder hard on yer head-rails," said Ricks, trying to bite through a piece of stale bread. A baker had let them have three loaves for a dime because they were old and hard. Sandy cast a longing look at Ricks's short bottle. It seemed to remedy so many ills, heat or cold, thirst or hunger. But the strict principles applied during his tender years made him hesitate. "I wish we hadn't lost the kitten," he said, feeling the need of a more cheerful companion. "I'm a-goin' to git another dawg," announced Ricks. "I'm sick of this here doin's." "Ain't we goin' to be turfmen?" asked Sandy, who had listened by the hour to thrilling accounts of life on the track, and had accepted Ricks's ambition as his own. "Not on twenty cents per week," growled Ricks. Sandy's heart sank; he knew what a new dog meant. He burrowed in the hay and tried to sleep, but there was a queer pain that seemed to catch hold of his breath whenever he breathed down deep. It rained the next day, and they tramped disconsolately through village after village. They had oil-cloth covers for their baskets, but their own backs were soaked to the skin. Toward evening they came to the top of a hill, from which they could look directly down upon a large town lying comfortably in the crook of a river's elbow. The rain had stopped, and the belated sun, struggling through the clouds, made up for lost time by reflecting itself in every curve of the winding stream, in every puddle along the road, and in every pane of glass that faced the west. "That's a nobby hoss," said Ricks, pointing down the hill. "What's the matter with the feller?" A slight, delicate-looking young man was lying in the road, between the horse and the fence. As the boys came up he stirred and tried to rise. "He's off his nut," said Ricks, starting to pass on; but Sandy stopped. "Get a fall?" he asked. The strange boy shook his head. "I guess I fainted. I must have ridden too hard. I'll be all right in a minute." He leaned his head against a tree and closed his eyes. Sandy eyed him curiously, taking in all the details of his riding-costume down to the short whip with the silver mounting. "I say, Ricks," he called to his companion, who was inspecting the horse, "can't we do somethin' for him?" Ricks reluctantly produced the short bottle. "I'm all right," insisted the boy, "if you'll just give me a lift to the saddle." But his eager eyes followed the bottle, and before Ricks had returned it to his pocket he held out his hand. "I believe I will take a drink if you don't mind." He drained the contents and then handed a coin to Ricks. "Now, if you'll help me," continued the stranger. "There! Thank you very much." "Say, what town is this, anyway?" asked Ricks. "Clayton," said the boy, trying to keep his horse from backing. "Looks like somethin' was doin'," said Ricks. "Circus, I believe." "Then I don't blame your nag for wantin' to go back!" cried Sandy. "Come on, Ricks; let's take in the show!" Half-way down the hill he turned. "Haven't we seen that fellow before, Ricks?" "Not as I knows of. He looked kinder pale and shaky, but you bet yer life he knowed how to hit the bottle." "He was sick," urged Sandy. "An' thirsty," added Ricks, with a smile of superior wisdom. The circus seemed such a timely opportunity to do business that they decided to rent a stand that night and sell their wares on the street corner. Ricks went on into town to arrange matters, while Sandy stopped in a grocery to buy their supper. His interest in the show had been of short duration. He felt listless and tired, something seemed to be buzzing continually in his head, and he shivered in his damp clothes. In the grocery he sat on a barrel and leaned his head against the wall. "What you shivering about?" asked the fat woman behind the counter, as she tied up his small package. "I feel like me skeleton was doin' a jig inside of me," said Sandy through chattering teeth. "Looks to me like you got a chill," said the fat woman. "You wait here, and I'll go git you some hot coffee." She disappeared in the rear of the store, and soon returned with a small coffee-pot and a cup and saucer. Sandy drank two cups and a half, then he asked the price. "Price?" repeated the woman, indignantly. "I reckon you don't know which side of the Ohio River you're on!" Sandy made up in gratitude what she declined in cash, and started on his way. At the corner of Main street and the bridge he found Ricks, who had rented a stand and was already arranging his wares. Sandy knelt on the sidewalk and unpacked his basket. "Only three bars of soap and seventy-five microscopes!" he exclaimed ruefully. "Let's be layin' fine stress on the microscopes, Ricks." "You do the jawin', Sandy. I ain't much on givin' 'em the talk," said Ricks. "Chuck a jolly at 'em and keep 'em hangin' round." As dark came on, trade began. The three bars of soap were sold, and a purple necktie. Sandy saw that public taste must be guided in the proper direction. He stepped up on a box and began eloquently to enumerate the diverse uses of microscopes. At each end of the stand a flaring torch lighted up the scene. The light fell on the careless, laughing faces in front, on Ricks Wilson, black-browed and suspicious, in the rear, and it fell full on Sandy, who stood on high and harangued the crowd. It fell on his broad, straight shoulders and on his shining tumbled hair; but it was not the light of the torch that gave the brightness to his eyes and the flush to his cheek. His head was throbbing, but he felt a curious sense of elation. He felt that he could stand there and talk the rest of his life. He made the crowd listen, he made it laugh, he made it buy. He told stories and sang songs, he coaxed and persuaded, until only a few microscopes were left and the old cigar-box was heavy with silver. "Step right up and take a look at a fly's leg! Every one ought to have a microscope in his home. When you get hard up it will make a dime look like a dollar, and a dollar like a five-dollar gold piece. Step right up! I ain't kiddin' you. Five cents for two looks, and fifteen for the microscope." Suddenly he faltered. At the edge of the crowd he had recognized two faces. They were sensitive slender faces, strangely alike in feature and unlike in expression. The young horseman of the afternoon was impatiently pushing his way through the crowd, while close behind him was a dainty girl with brown eyes slightly lifted at the outer corners, who held back in laughing wonder to watch the scene. "Ricks," said Sandy, lowering his voice unsteadily, "is this Kentucky?" "Yep; we crossed the line to-day." "I can't talk no more," said Sandy. "You'll have to be doin' it. I'm sick." It was not only the fever that was burning in his veins, and making him bury his hot head in his hands and wish he had never been born. It was shame and humiliation, and all because of the look on the face of the girl at the edge of the crowd. He sat in the shadow of the big box and fought his fight. The coffee and the excitement no longer kept him up; he was faint, and his breath came short. Above him he heard Ricks's rasping voice still talking to the few customers who were left. He knew, without glancing up, just how Ricks looked when he said the words; he knew how his teeth pushed his lips back, and how his restless little eyes watched everything at once. A sudden fierce repulsion swept over him for peddling, for Ricks, for himself. "And to think," he whispered, with a sob in his throat, "that I can't ever speak to a girl like that!" Ricks, jubilant over the success of the evening, decided to follow the circus, which was to be in the next town on the following day. "It ain't fur," he said. "We kin push on to-night and be ready to open early in the morning." Sandy, miserable in body and spirit, mechanically obeyed instructions. His head was getting queerer all the time, and he could not remember whether it was day or night. About a mile from Clayton he sank down by the road. "Say, Ricks," he said abruptly; "I'm after quittin' peddlin'." "What you goin' to do?" "I'm goin' to school." If Sandy had announced his intention of putting on baby clothes and being wheeled in a perambulator, Ricks could not have been more astonished. "What?" he asked in genuine doubt. "'Cause I want to be the right sort," burst out Sandy, passionately. "This ain't the way you get to be the right sort." Ricks surveyed him contemptuously. "Look-a here, are you comin' along of me or not?" "I can't," said Sandy, weakly. Ricks shifted his pack, and with never a parting word or a backward look he left his business partner of three months lying by the roadside, and tramped away in the darkness. Sandy started up to follow him; he tried to call, but he had no strength. He lay with his face on the road and talked. He knew there was nobody to listen, but still he kept on, softly talking about microscopes and pink soap, crying out again and again that he couldn't ever speak to a girl like that. After a long while somebody came. At first he thought he must have gone back to the land behind the peat-flames, for it was a great black witch who bent over him, and he instinctively felt about in the grass for the tender, soft hand which he used to press against his cheek. He found instead the hand of the witch herself, and he drew back in terror. "Fer de Lawd sake, honey, what's de matter wif you?" asked a kindly voice. Sandy opened his eyes. A tall old negro woman bent over him, her head tied up in a turban, and a shawl about her shoulders. "Did you git runned over?" she asked, peering down at him anxiously. Sandy tried to explain, but it was all the old mixture of soap and microscopes and never being able to speak to her. He knew he was talking at random, but he could not say the things he thought. "Where'd you come from, boy?" "Curragh Chase, Limerick," murmured Sandy. "'Fore de Lawd, he's done been cunjered!" cried the old woman, aghast. "I'll git it outen of you, chile. You jus' come home wif yer Aunt Melvy; she'll take keer of you. Put yer arm on my shoulder; dat's right. Don't you mind where you gwine at. I got yer bundle. It ain't fur. Hit's dat little house a-hangin' on de side of de hill. Dey calls it 'Who'd 'a' Thought It,' 'ca'se you nebber would 'a' thought of puttin' a house dere. Dat's right; lean on yer mammy. I'll git dem old cunjers outen you." Thus encouraged and supported, Sandy stumbled on through the dark, up a hillside that seemed never to end, across a bridge, then into a tiny log cabin, where he dropped exhausted. Off and on during the night he knew that there was a fire in the room, and that strange things were happening to him. But it was all so queer and unnatural that he did not know where the dreams left off and the real began. He was vaguely conscious of his left foot being tied to the right bedpost, of a lock of his hair being cut off and burned on the hearth, and of a low monotonous chant that seemed to rise and fall with the flicker of the flames. And when he cried out with the pain in his sleep, a kindly black face bent over him, and the chant changed into a soothing murmur: "Nebber you min', sonny; Aunt Melvy gwine git dem cunjers out. She gwine stay by you. You hol' on to her han', an' go to sleep; she'll git dem old cunjers out." CHAPTER VI HOLLIS FARM Clayton was an easy-going, prosperous old town which, in the enthusiasm of youth, had started to climb the long hill to the north, but growing indolent with age, | effort | How many times the word 'effort' appears in the text? | 1 |
ventured a step nearer and continued his observations. As he did so, he made a discovery. The soft white of her cheek was gradually becoming pinker and pinker; the color which began under her lace collar stole up and up until it reached her eyes, which still gazed determinedly before her. Sandy admired it as a traveler admires a sunrise, and with as little idea of having caused it. The line of passengers moved slowly forward, and his heart sank. Suddenly his eyes fell upon the little hand-bag which she carried. On one end, in small white letters, was: "Ruth Nelson, Kentucky, U.S.A." He watched her until she was lost to view, then he turned eagerly back into the crowd. Elbowing his way forward, he seized Ricks by the arm. "Hi, there!" he cried; "I've changed me mind. I'm goin' with you to Kentucky!" So this impetuous knight errant enlisted under the will-o'-the-wisp love, and started joyously forth upon his quest. CHAPTER III THE CURSE OF WEALTH It is an oft-proved adage that for ten who can stand adversity there is but one who can stand prosperity. Sandy, alas! was no exception to any rule which went to prove the frailty of human nature. The sudden acquisition of ten dollars cast him into a whirlpool of temptation from which he made little effort to escape. "I ain't goin' on to-day," announced Ricks. "I'm goin' to lay in my goods for peddlin'. I reckon you kin come along of me." Sandy accepted a long and strong cigar, tilted his hat, and unconsciously caught Ricks's slouching gait as they went down the street. After all, it was rather pleasant to associate with sophistication. "We'll git on the outside of a little dinner," said Ricks; "and I'll mosey round in the stores awhile, then I'll take you to a show or two. It's a mighty good thing for you that you got me along." Sandy thought so too. He cheerfully stood treat for the rest of the day, and felt that it was small return for Ricks's condescension. "How much you got left?" asked Ricks, that night, as they stopped under a street light to take stock. Sandy held out a couple of dollars and a fifty-cent piece. "Enough to put on the eyes of two and a half dead men," he said as he curiously eyed the strange money. "One, two,--two and a half," counted Ricks. "Shillings?" asked Sandy, amazed. Ricks nodded. "And have I blowed all that to-day?" "What of it?" asked Ricks. "I seen a bloke onct what lit his cigar with a bill like the one you had!" "But the doctor said it was two pounds," insisted Sandy, incredulously. He did not realize the expense of a personally conducted tour of the Bowery. "Well, it's went," said Ricks, resignedly. "You can't count on settin' up biz with what's left." Sandy's brows clouded, and he shifted his position restlessly. "Now I ax yerself, Ricks, what'u'd you do?" he said. "Me? I don't give advice to nobody. But effen it was me I'd know mighty quick what to do." "What?" said Sandy, eagerly. "Buy a dawg." "A dog? I ain't goin' blind." "Lor'! but you're a softhorn," said Ricks, contemptuously. "I s'pose you'd count on leadin' him round by a pink ribbon." "Oh, you mean a fighter?" "Sure. My last dawg could do ever'thing in sight. She was so game she went after herself in a lookin'-glass and got kilt. Oh, they's money in dawgs, and I knows how to make 'em win ever' time." Sandy, tired as he was from the day's excitement, insisted upon going in search of one at once. He already had visions of becoming the proud owner of a canine champion that would put him immediately into the position of lighting his cigar with a two-pound note. The first three weeks of their experience on the road went far to realize their expectations. The bulldog, which had been bought in partnership, proved a conquering hero. Through the long summer days the boys tramped over the country, peddling their wares, and by night they conducted sundry unlawful encounters wherever an opponent could be found. Sandy enjoyed the peddling. It was astonishing what friendly sociability and confidential intimacy were established by the sale of blue suspenders and pink soap. He left a line of smiling testimonials in his wake. But if the days were proving satisfactory, so much could not be said of the nights. Even the phenomenal luck that followed his dog failed to keep up his enthusiasm. "You ain't a nachrul sport," complained Ricks. "That's your trouble. When the last fight was on, you set on the fence and listened at a' ole idiot scrapin' a fiddle down in the valley." Sandy made a feeble defense, but he knew in his soul it was so. Affairs reached a climax one night in an old barn on the outskirts of a town. A fight was about to begin when Sandy discovered Ricks judiciously administering a sedative to the enemy's dog. Then understanding dawned upon him, and his rage was elemental. With a valor that lacked the better part of discretion, he hurled himself through the crowd and fell upon Ricks. An hour later, bruised, bloody, and vanquished, he stumbled along through the dreary night. Hot with rage and defeat, utterly ignorant of his whereabouts, his one friend turned foe, he was indeed in sorry plight. He climbed over the fence and lay face downward in the long, cool grass, stretching his bruised and aching body along the ground. A gentle night wind rustled above him, and by and by a star peeped out, then another and another. Before he knew it, he was listening to the frogs and katydids, and wondering what they were talking about. He ceased to think about Ricks and his woes, and gave himself up to the delicious, drowsy peace that was all about him. For, child of nature that he was, he had turned to the only mother he knew. CHAPTER IV SIDE-TRACKED The next morning, at the nearest railroad station, an irate cattleman was trying to hire some one to take charge of a car of live stock which was on its way to a great exposition in a neighboring city. The man he had counted on had not appeared, and the train was about due. As he was turning away in desperation he felt a tug at his elbow. Looking around, he saw a queer figure with a countenance that resembled a first attempt at a charcoal sketch from life: one cheek was larger than the other, the mouth was sadly out of drawing, the eyes shone out from among the bruises like the sun from behind the clouds. But if the features were disfigured, the smile was none the less courageous. Sandy had found a friendly sympathizer at a neighboring farm-house, had been given a good breakfast, had made his toilet, and was ready for the next round in the fight of life. "I'll be doin' yer job, sir, whatever it is," he said pleasantly. The man eyed him with misgiving, but his need was urgent. "All you have to do is to stay in the car and look after the cattle. My man will meet you when you reach the city. Do you think you can do it?" "Just keep company with the cows?" cried Sandy. "Sure and I can!" So the bargain was struck, and that night found him in the great city with a dollar in his pocket and a promise of work in the morning. Tired and sore from the experiences of the night before, he sought a cheap lodging-house near by. A hook-nosed woman, carrying a smoking lamp, conducted him to a room under the eaves. It was small and suffocating. He involuntarily lifted his hands and touched the ceiling. "It's like a boilin' potato I feel," he said; "and the pot's so little and the lid so tight!" He went to the window, and taking out the nail that held down the sash, pushed it up. Below him lay the great, bustling city, cabs and cars in constant motion, long lines of blazing lights marking the thoroughfares, the thunder of trains in the big station, and above and below and through it all a dull monotonous roar, like the faraway unceasing cry of a hungry beast. He sank on his knees by the window, and a restless, nervous look came into his eyes. "It presses in, too," he thought. "It's all crowdin' over me. I'm just me by myself, all alone." A tear made a white course down his grimy cheek, then another and another. He brushed them impatiently away with the cap he still held in his hand. Rising abruptly, he turned away from the window, and the hot air of the room again smote him. The smoking lamp had blackened the chimney, and as he bent to turn it down, he caught his reflection in a small mirror over the table. What the bruises and swelling had left undone the cheap mirror completed. He started back. Was that the boy he knew as himself? Was that Sandy Kilday who had come to America to seek his fortune? He stared in a sort of fascinated horror at that other boy in the mirror. Before he had been afraid to be by himself, now he was afraid of himself. He seized his cap, and blowing out the lamp, plunged down four flights of steep narrow steps and out into the street. A number of people were crowding into a street-car marked "Exposition." Sandy, ever a straw in the current, joined them. Once more down among his fellow-men, he began to feel more comfortable. He cheerfully paid his entrance fee with one of the two silver coins in his pocket. The first building he entered was the art gallery, and the first picture that caught his eye held him spellbound. He sat before it all the evening with fascinated eyes, devouring every detail and oblivious to the curious interest he was attracting; for the huge canvas represented the Knights of the Round Table, and he had at last found friends. All the way back he thought about the picture; it was not until he reached his room that the former loneliness returned. But even then it was not for long. A pair of yellow eyes peered around the window-sill, and a plaintive "meow" begged for admittance. It was plainly Providence that guided that thin and ill-treated kitten to Sandy's window. The welcome it received must have completely restored its shaken faith in human nature. Tired as he was, Sandy went out and bought some milk. He wanted to establish a firm friendship; for if he was to stay in this lonely city, he must have something to love, if only a prodigal kitten of doubtful pedigree. During the long, hot days that followed Sandy worked faithfully at the depot. The regular hours and confinement seemed doubly irksome after the bohemian life on the road. The Exposition was his salvation. No sacrifice seemed too great to enable him to get beyond that magic gate. For the "Knights of the Round Table" was but the beginning of miles and miles of wonderful pictures. He even bought a catalogue, and, prompted by a natural curiosity for anything that interested him, learned the names of the artists he liked best, and the bits of biography attached to each. He would recite these to the yellow kitten when he got back to his little hot-box of a room. One night the art gallery was closed, and he went into another big building where a crowd of people were seated. At one end of it was a great pipe-organ, and after a while some one began to play. With his cap tightly grasped in both hands, he tiptoed down the center aisle and stood breathlessly drinking in the wonderful tones that seemed to be coming from his own heart. "Get out of the way, boy," said an usher. "You are blocking the aisle." A queer-appearing lady who looked like a man touched his elbow. "Here's a seat," she said in a deep voice. "Thank you, sir," said Sandy, absently. He scarcely knew whether he was sitting or standing. He only wanted to be let alone, so that he could listen to those strange, beautiful sounds that made a shiver of joy go down his back. Art had had her day; it was Music's turn. When the last number had been played, he turned to the queer lady: "Do they do it every night?" She smiled at his enthusiasm: "Wednesdays and Saturdays." "Say," said Sandy, confidentially, "if you come first do you save me a seat, and I'll do the same by you." From that time on he decided to be a musician, and he lived on two scanty meals a day in order to attend the concerts. But this exalted scheme of high thinking and plain living soon became irksome. One day, when his loneliness weighed most heavily upon him, he was sent with a message out to the switch-station. As he tramped back along the track he spied a familiar figure ahead of him. There was no mistaking that short, slouching body with the peddler's pack strapped on its back. With a cry of joy, Sandy bounded after Ricks Wilson. He actually hugged him in his joy to be once more with some one he knew. Ricks glanced uneasily at the scar above his eye. Sandy clapped his hand over it and laughed. "It's all right, Ricks; a miss is as good as a mile. I ain't mad any more. It's straight home with me you are goin'; and if we can get the two feet of you into me bit of a room, we'll have a dinner that's fit for a king." On the way they laid in a supply of provisions, Sandy even going to the expense of a bottle of beer for Ricks. The yellow kitten arched her back and showed general signs of hostility when the stranger was introduced. But her unfriendly demonstrations were ignored. Ricks was the honored guest, and Sandy extended to him the full hospitality of the establishment. "Put your pack on the floor and yerself in the chair, and I'll get ye filled up in the blink of an eyelash. Don't be mindin' the cat, Ricks. She's just lettin' on she don't take to you. She give me the wink on the sly." Ricks, expanding under the influence of food and drink, became eloquent. He recounted courageous adventures of the past, and outlined marvelous schemes for the future, by which he was going to make a short cut to fame and glory. When it was time for him to go, Sandy heaved a sigh of regret. For two hours he had been beguiled by Ricks's romances, and now he had to go back to the humdrum duties at the depot, and receive a sound rating for his belated appearance. "Which way might you be goin', Ricks?" he asked wistfully. "Same place I started fer," said Ricks. "Kentucky." The will-o'-the-wisp, which had been hiding his light, suddenly swung it full in the eyes of Sandy. Once more he saw the little maid of his dreams, and once more he threw discretion to the winds and followed the vision. Hastily collecting his few possessions, he rolled them into a bundle, and slipping the surprised kitten into his pocket, he gladly followed Ricks once more out into the broad green meadows, along the white and shining roads that lead over the hills to Kentucky. CHAPTER V SANDY RETIRES FROM BUSINESS "This here is too blame slow fer me," said Ricks, one chilly night in late September, as he and Sandy huddled against a haystack and settled up their weekly accounts. "Fifty-five cents! Now ain't that a' o'nery dab? Here's a quarter fer you and thirty cents fer me; that's as even as you kin split it." "It's the microscopes that'll be sellin'," said Sandy, hopefully, as he pulled his coat collar about his ears and shivered. "The man as sold 'em to me said they was a great bargain entirely. He thought there was money in 'em." "For him," said Ricks, contemptuously. "It's like the man what gulled us on the penknives. I lay to git even with him, all right." "But he give us the night's lodgin' and some breakfast," said Sandy. Ricks took a long drink from a short bottle, then holding it before him, he said impressively: "A feller could do me ninety-nine good turns, and if he done me one bad one it would wipe 'em all out. I got to git even with anybody what does me dirty, if it takes me all my life." "But don't you forget to remember?" "Not me. I ain't that kind." Sandy leaned wearily against the haystack and tried to shelter himself from the wind. A continued diet of bread and water had made him sensitive to the changes in the weather. "This here grub is kinder hard on yer head-rails," said Ricks, trying to bite through a piece of stale bread. A baker had let them have three loaves for a dime because they were old and hard. Sandy cast a longing look at Ricks's short bottle. It seemed to remedy so many ills, heat or cold, thirst or hunger. But the strict principles applied during his tender years made him hesitate. "I wish we hadn't lost the kitten," he said, feeling the need of a more cheerful companion. "I'm a-goin' to git another dawg," announced Ricks. "I'm sick of this here doin's." "Ain't we goin' to be turfmen?" asked Sandy, who had listened by the hour to thrilling accounts of life on the track, and had accepted Ricks's ambition as his own. "Not on twenty cents per week," growled Ricks. Sandy's heart sank; he knew what a new dog meant. He burrowed in the hay and tried to sleep, but there was a queer pain that seemed to catch hold of his breath whenever he breathed down deep. It rained the next day, and they tramped disconsolately through village after village. They had oil-cloth covers for their baskets, but their own backs were soaked to the skin. Toward evening they came to the top of a hill, from which they could look directly down upon a large town lying comfortably in the crook of a river's elbow. The rain had stopped, and the belated sun, struggling through the clouds, made up for lost time by reflecting itself in every curve of the winding stream, in every puddle along the road, and in every pane of glass that faced the west. "That's a nobby hoss," said Ricks, pointing down the hill. "What's the matter with the feller?" A slight, delicate-looking young man was lying in the road, between the horse and the fence. As the boys came up he stirred and tried to rise. "He's off his nut," said Ricks, starting to pass on; but Sandy stopped. "Get a fall?" he asked. The strange boy shook his head. "I guess I fainted. I must have ridden too hard. I'll be all right in a minute." He leaned his head against a tree and closed his eyes. Sandy eyed him curiously, taking in all the details of his riding-costume down to the short whip with the silver mounting. "I say, Ricks," he called to his companion, who was inspecting the horse, "can't we do somethin' for him?" Ricks reluctantly produced the short bottle. "I'm all right," insisted the boy, "if you'll just give me a lift to the saddle." But his eager eyes followed the bottle, and before Ricks had returned it to his pocket he held out his hand. "I believe I will take a drink if you don't mind." He drained the contents and then handed a coin to Ricks. "Now, if you'll help me," continued the stranger. "There! Thank you very much." "Say, what town is this, anyway?" asked Ricks. "Clayton," said the boy, trying to keep his horse from backing. "Looks like somethin' was doin'," said Ricks. "Circus, I believe." "Then I don't blame your nag for wantin' to go back!" cried Sandy. "Come on, Ricks; let's take in the show!" Half-way down the hill he turned. "Haven't we seen that fellow before, Ricks?" "Not as I knows of. He looked kinder pale and shaky, but you bet yer life he knowed how to hit the bottle." "He was sick," urged Sandy. "An' thirsty," added Ricks, with a smile of superior wisdom. The circus seemed such a timely opportunity to do business that they decided to rent a stand that night and sell their wares on the street corner. Ricks went on into town to arrange matters, while Sandy stopped in a grocery to buy their supper. His interest in the show had been of short duration. He felt listless and tired, something seemed to be buzzing continually in his head, and he shivered in his damp clothes. In the grocery he sat on a barrel and leaned his head against the wall. "What you shivering about?" asked the fat woman behind the counter, as she tied up his small package. "I feel like me skeleton was doin' a jig inside of me," said Sandy through chattering teeth. "Looks to me like you got a chill," said the fat woman. "You wait here, and I'll go git you some hot coffee." She disappeared in the rear of the store, and soon returned with a small coffee-pot and a cup and saucer. Sandy drank two cups and a half, then he asked the price. "Price?" repeated the woman, indignantly. "I reckon you don't know which side of the Ohio River you're on!" Sandy made up in gratitude what she declined in cash, and started on his way. At the corner of Main street and the bridge he found Ricks, who had rented a stand and was already arranging his wares. Sandy knelt on the sidewalk and unpacked his basket. "Only three bars of soap and seventy-five microscopes!" he exclaimed ruefully. "Let's be layin' fine stress on the microscopes, Ricks." "You do the jawin', Sandy. I ain't much on givin' 'em the talk," said Ricks. "Chuck a jolly at 'em and keep 'em hangin' round." As dark came on, trade began. The three bars of soap were sold, and a purple necktie. Sandy saw that public taste must be guided in the proper direction. He stepped up on a box and began eloquently to enumerate the diverse uses of microscopes. At each end of the stand a flaring torch lighted up the scene. The light fell on the careless, laughing faces in front, on Ricks Wilson, black-browed and suspicious, in the rear, and it fell full on Sandy, who stood on high and harangued the crowd. It fell on his broad, straight shoulders and on his shining tumbled hair; but it was not the light of the torch that gave the brightness to his eyes and the flush to his cheek. His head was throbbing, but he felt a curious sense of elation. He felt that he could stand there and talk the rest of his life. He made the crowd listen, he made it laugh, he made it buy. He told stories and sang songs, he coaxed and persuaded, until only a few microscopes were left and the old cigar-box was heavy with silver. "Step right up and take a look at a fly's leg! Every one ought to have a microscope in his home. When you get hard up it will make a dime look like a dollar, and a dollar like a five-dollar gold piece. Step right up! I ain't kiddin' you. Five cents for two looks, and fifteen for the microscope." Suddenly he faltered. At the edge of the crowd he had recognized two faces. They were sensitive slender faces, strangely alike in feature and unlike in expression. The young horseman of the afternoon was impatiently pushing his way through the crowd, while close behind him was a dainty girl with brown eyes slightly lifted at the outer corners, who held back in laughing wonder to watch the scene. "Ricks," said Sandy, lowering his voice unsteadily, "is this Kentucky?" "Yep; we crossed the line to-day." "I can't talk no more," said Sandy. "You'll have to be doin' it. I'm sick." It was not only the fever that was burning in his veins, and making him bury his hot head in his hands and wish he had never been born. It was shame and humiliation, and all because of the look on the face of the girl at the edge of the crowd. He sat in the shadow of the big box and fought his fight. The coffee and the excitement no longer kept him up; he was faint, and his breath came short. Above him he heard Ricks's rasping voice still talking to the few customers who were left. He knew, without glancing up, just how Ricks looked when he said the words; he knew how his teeth pushed his lips back, and how his restless little eyes watched everything at once. A sudden fierce repulsion swept over him for peddling, for Ricks, for himself. "And to think," he whispered, with a sob in his throat, "that I can't ever speak to a girl like that!" Ricks, jubilant over the success of the evening, decided to follow the circus, which was to be in the next town on the following day. "It ain't fur," he said. "We kin push on to-night and be ready to open early in the morning." Sandy, miserable in body and spirit, mechanically obeyed instructions. His head was getting queerer all the time, and he could not remember whether it was day or night. About a mile from Clayton he sank down by the road. "Say, Ricks," he said abruptly; "I'm after quittin' peddlin'." "What you goin' to do?" "I'm goin' to school." If Sandy had announced his intention of putting on baby clothes and being wheeled in a perambulator, Ricks could not have been more astonished. "What?" he asked in genuine doubt. "'Cause I want to be the right sort," burst out Sandy, passionately. "This ain't the way you get to be the right sort." Ricks surveyed him contemptuously. "Look-a here, are you comin' along of me or not?" "I can't," said Sandy, weakly. Ricks shifted his pack, and with never a parting word or a backward look he left his business partner of three months lying by the roadside, and tramped away in the darkness. Sandy started up to follow him; he tried to call, but he had no strength. He lay with his face on the road and talked. He knew there was nobody to listen, but still he kept on, softly talking about microscopes and pink soap, crying out again and again that he couldn't ever speak to a girl like that. After a long while somebody came. At first he thought he must have gone back to the land behind the peat-flames, for it was a great black witch who bent over him, and he instinctively felt about in the grass for the tender, soft hand which he used to press against his cheek. He found instead the hand of the witch herself, and he drew back in terror. "Fer de Lawd sake, honey, what's de matter wif you?" asked a kindly voice. Sandy opened his eyes. A tall old negro woman bent over him, her head tied up in a turban, and a shawl about her shoulders. "Did you git runned over?" she asked, peering down at him anxiously. Sandy tried to explain, but it was all the old mixture of soap and microscopes and never being able to speak to her. He knew he was talking at random, but he could not say the things he thought. "Where'd you come from, boy?" "Curragh Chase, Limerick," murmured Sandy. "'Fore de Lawd, he's done been cunjered!" cried the old woman, aghast. "I'll git it outen of you, chile. You jus' come home wif yer Aunt Melvy; she'll take keer of you. Put yer arm on my shoulder; dat's right. Don't you mind where you gwine at. I got yer bundle. It ain't fur. Hit's dat little house a-hangin' on de side of de hill. Dey calls it 'Who'd 'a' Thought It,' 'ca'se you nebber would 'a' thought of puttin' a house dere. Dat's right; lean on yer mammy. I'll git dem old cunjers outen you." Thus encouraged and supported, Sandy stumbled on through the dark, up a hillside that seemed never to end, across a bridge, then into a tiny log cabin, where he dropped exhausted. Off and on during the night he knew that there was a fire in the room, and that strange things were happening to him. But it was all so queer and unnatural that he did not know where the dreams left off and the real began. He was vaguely conscious of his left foot being tied to the right bedpost, of a lock of his hair being cut off and burned on the hearth, and of a low monotonous chant that seemed to rise and fall with the flicker of the flames. And when he cried out with the pain in his sleep, a kindly black face bent over him, and the chant changed into a soothing murmur: "Nebber you min', sonny; Aunt Melvy gwine git dem cunjers out. She gwine stay by you. You hol' on to her han', an' go to sleep; she'll git dem old cunjers out." CHAPTER VI HOLLIS FARM Clayton was an easy-going, prosperous old town which, in the enthusiasm of youth, had started to climb the long hill to the north, but growing indolent with age, | fifty | How many times the word 'fifty' appears in the text? | 2 |
ventured a step nearer and continued his observations. As he did so, he made a discovery. The soft white of her cheek was gradually becoming pinker and pinker; the color which began under her lace collar stole up and up until it reached her eyes, which still gazed determinedly before her. Sandy admired it as a traveler admires a sunrise, and with as little idea of having caused it. The line of passengers moved slowly forward, and his heart sank. Suddenly his eyes fell upon the little hand-bag which she carried. On one end, in small white letters, was: "Ruth Nelson, Kentucky, U.S.A." He watched her until she was lost to view, then he turned eagerly back into the crowd. Elbowing his way forward, he seized Ricks by the arm. "Hi, there!" he cried; "I've changed me mind. I'm goin' with you to Kentucky!" So this impetuous knight errant enlisted under the will-o'-the-wisp love, and started joyously forth upon his quest. CHAPTER III THE CURSE OF WEALTH It is an oft-proved adage that for ten who can stand adversity there is but one who can stand prosperity. Sandy, alas! was no exception to any rule which went to prove the frailty of human nature. The sudden acquisition of ten dollars cast him into a whirlpool of temptation from which he made little effort to escape. "I ain't goin' on to-day," announced Ricks. "I'm goin' to lay in my goods for peddlin'. I reckon you kin come along of me." Sandy accepted a long and strong cigar, tilted his hat, and unconsciously caught Ricks's slouching gait as they went down the street. After all, it was rather pleasant to associate with sophistication. "We'll git on the outside of a little dinner," said Ricks; "and I'll mosey round in the stores awhile, then I'll take you to a show or two. It's a mighty good thing for you that you got me along." Sandy thought so too. He cheerfully stood treat for the rest of the day, and felt that it was small return for Ricks's condescension. "How much you got left?" asked Ricks, that night, as they stopped under a street light to take stock. Sandy held out a couple of dollars and a fifty-cent piece. "Enough to put on the eyes of two and a half dead men," he said as he curiously eyed the strange money. "One, two,--two and a half," counted Ricks. "Shillings?" asked Sandy, amazed. Ricks nodded. "And have I blowed all that to-day?" "What of it?" asked Ricks. "I seen a bloke onct what lit his cigar with a bill like the one you had!" "But the doctor said it was two pounds," insisted Sandy, incredulously. He did not realize the expense of a personally conducted tour of the Bowery. "Well, it's went," said Ricks, resignedly. "You can't count on settin' up biz with what's left." Sandy's brows clouded, and he shifted his position restlessly. "Now I ax yerself, Ricks, what'u'd you do?" he said. "Me? I don't give advice to nobody. But effen it was me I'd know mighty quick what to do." "What?" said Sandy, eagerly. "Buy a dawg." "A dog? I ain't goin' blind." "Lor'! but you're a softhorn," said Ricks, contemptuously. "I s'pose you'd count on leadin' him round by a pink ribbon." "Oh, you mean a fighter?" "Sure. My last dawg could do ever'thing in sight. She was so game she went after herself in a lookin'-glass and got kilt. Oh, they's money in dawgs, and I knows how to make 'em win ever' time." Sandy, tired as he was from the day's excitement, insisted upon going in search of one at once. He already had visions of becoming the proud owner of a canine champion that would put him immediately into the position of lighting his cigar with a two-pound note. The first three weeks of their experience on the road went far to realize their expectations. The bulldog, which had been bought in partnership, proved a conquering hero. Through the long summer days the boys tramped over the country, peddling their wares, and by night they conducted sundry unlawful encounters wherever an opponent could be found. Sandy enjoyed the peddling. It was astonishing what friendly sociability and confidential intimacy were established by the sale of blue suspenders and pink soap. He left a line of smiling testimonials in his wake. But if the days were proving satisfactory, so much could not be said of the nights. Even the phenomenal luck that followed his dog failed to keep up his enthusiasm. "You ain't a nachrul sport," complained Ricks. "That's your trouble. When the last fight was on, you set on the fence and listened at a' ole idiot scrapin' a fiddle down in the valley." Sandy made a feeble defense, but he knew in his soul it was so. Affairs reached a climax one night in an old barn on the outskirts of a town. A fight was about to begin when Sandy discovered Ricks judiciously administering a sedative to the enemy's dog. Then understanding dawned upon him, and his rage was elemental. With a valor that lacked the better part of discretion, he hurled himself through the crowd and fell upon Ricks. An hour later, bruised, bloody, and vanquished, he stumbled along through the dreary night. Hot with rage and defeat, utterly ignorant of his whereabouts, his one friend turned foe, he was indeed in sorry plight. He climbed over the fence and lay face downward in the long, cool grass, stretching his bruised and aching body along the ground. A gentle night wind rustled above him, and by and by a star peeped out, then another and another. Before he knew it, he was listening to the frogs and katydids, and wondering what they were talking about. He ceased to think about Ricks and his woes, and gave himself up to the delicious, drowsy peace that was all about him. For, child of nature that he was, he had turned to the only mother he knew. CHAPTER IV SIDE-TRACKED The next morning, at the nearest railroad station, an irate cattleman was trying to hire some one to take charge of a car of live stock which was on its way to a great exposition in a neighboring city. The man he had counted on had not appeared, and the train was about due. As he was turning away in desperation he felt a tug at his elbow. Looking around, he saw a queer figure with a countenance that resembled a first attempt at a charcoal sketch from life: one cheek was larger than the other, the mouth was sadly out of drawing, the eyes shone out from among the bruises like the sun from behind the clouds. But if the features were disfigured, the smile was none the less courageous. Sandy had found a friendly sympathizer at a neighboring farm-house, had been given a good breakfast, had made his toilet, and was ready for the next round in the fight of life. "I'll be doin' yer job, sir, whatever it is," he said pleasantly. The man eyed him with misgiving, but his need was urgent. "All you have to do is to stay in the car and look after the cattle. My man will meet you when you reach the city. Do you think you can do it?" "Just keep company with the cows?" cried Sandy. "Sure and I can!" So the bargain was struck, and that night found him in the great city with a dollar in his pocket and a promise of work in the morning. Tired and sore from the experiences of the night before, he sought a cheap lodging-house near by. A hook-nosed woman, carrying a smoking lamp, conducted him to a room under the eaves. It was small and suffocating. He involuntarily lifted his hands and touched the ceiling. "It's like a boilin' potato I feel," he said; "and the pot's so little and the lid so tight!" He went to the window, and taking out the nail that held down the sash, pushed it up. Below him lay the great, bustling city, cabs and cars in constant motion, long lines of blazing lights marking the thoroughfares, the thunder of trains in the big station, and above and below and through it all a dull monotonous roar, like the faraway unceasing cry of a hungry beast. He sank on his knees by the window, and a restless, nervous look came into his eyes. "It presses in, too," he thought. "It's all crowdin' over me. I'm just me by myself, all alone." A tear made a white course down his grimy cheek, then another and another. He brushed them impatiently away with the cap he still held in his hand. Rising abruptly, he turned away from the window, and the hot air of the room again smote him. The smoking lamp had blackened the chimney, and as he bent to turn it down, he caught his reflection in a small mirror over the table. What the bruises and swelling had left undone the cheap mirror completed. He started back. Was that the boy he knew as himself? Was that Sandy Kilday who had come to America to seek his fortune? He stared in a sort of fascinated horror at that other boy in the mirror. Before he had been afraid to be by himself, now he was afraid of himself. He seized his cap, and blowing out the lamp, plunged down four flights of steep narrow steps and out into the street. A number of people were crowding into a street-car marked "Exposition." Sandy, ever a straw in the current, joined them. Once more down among his fellow-men, he began to feel more comfortable. He cheerfully paid his entrance fee with one of the two silver coins in his pocket. The first building he entered was the art gallery, and the first picture that caught his eye held him spellbound. He sat before it all the evening with fascinated eyes, devouring every detail and oblivious to the curious interest he was attracting; for the huge canvas represented the Knights of the Round Table, and he had at last found friends. All the way back he thought about the picture; it was not until he reached his room that the former loneliness returned. But even then it was not for long. A pair of yellow eyes peered around the window-sill, and a plaintive "meow" begged for admittance. It was plainly Providence that guided that thin and ill-treated kitten to Sandy's window. The welcome it received must have completely restored its shaken faith in human nature. Tired as he was, Sandy went out and bought some milk. He wanted to establish a firm friendship; for if he was to stay in this lonely city, he must have something to love, if only a prodigal kitten of doubtful pedigree. During the long, hot days that followed Sandy worked faithfully at the depot. The regular hours and confinement seemed doubly irksome after the bohemian life on the road. The Exposition was his salvation. No sacrifice seemed too great to enable him to get beyond that magic gate. For the "Knights of the Round Table" was but the beginning of miles and miles of wonderful pictures. He even bought a catalogue, and, prompted by a natural curiosity for anything that interested him, learned the names of the artists he liked best, and the bits of biography attached to each. He would recite these to the yellow kitten when he got back to his little hot-box of a room. One night the art gallery was closed, and he went into another big building where a crowd of people were seated. At one end of it was a great pipe-organ, and after a while some one began to play. With his cap tightly grasped in both hands, he tiptoed down the center aisle and stood breathlessly drinking in the wonderful tones that seemed to be coming from his own heart. "Get out of the way, boy," said an usher. "You are blocking the aisle." A queer-appearing lady who looked like a man touched his elbow. "Here's a seat," she said in a deep voice. "Thank you, sir," said Sandy, absently. He scarcely knew whether he was sitting or standing. He only wanted to be let alone, so that he could listen to those strange, beautiful sounds that made a shiver of joy go down his back. Art had had her day; it was Music's turn. When the last number had been played, he turned to the queer lady: "Do they do it every night?" She smiled at his enthusiasm: "Wednesdays and Saturdays." "Say," said Sandy, confidentially, "if you come first do you save me a seat, and I'll do the same by you." From that time on he decided to be a musician, and he lived on two scanty meals a day in order to attend the concerts. But this exalted scheme of high thinking and plain living soon became irksome. One day, when his loneliness weighed most heavily upon him, he was sent with a message out to the switch-station. As he tramped back along the track he spied a familiar figure ahead of him. There was no mistaking that short, slouching body with the peddler's pack strapped on its back. With a cry of joy, Sandy bounded after Ricks Wilson. He actually hugged him in his joy to be once more with some one he knew. Ricks glanced uneasily at the scar above his eye. Sandy clapped his hand over it and laughed. "It's all right, Ricks; a miss is as good as a mile. I ain't mad any more. It's straight home with me you are goin'; and if we can get the two feet of you into me bit of a room, we'll have a dinner that's fit for a king." On the way they laid in a supply of provisions, Sandy even going to the expense of a bottle of beer for Ricks. The yellow kitten arched her back and showed general signs of hostility when the stranger was introduced. But her unfriendly demonstrations were ignored. Ricks was the honored guest, and Sandy extended to him the full hospitality of the establishment. "Put your pack on the floor and yerself in the chair, and I'll get ye filled up in the blink of an eyelash. Don't be mindin' the cat, Ricks. She's just lettin' on she don't take to you. She give me the wink on the sly." Ricks, expanding under the influence of food and drink, became eloquent. He recounted courageous adventures of the past, and outlined marvelous schemes for the future, by which he was going to make a short cut to fame and glory. When it was time for him to go, Sandy heaved a sigh of regret. For two hours he had been beguiled by Ricks's romances, and now he had to go back to the humdrum duties at the depot, and receive a sound rating for his belated appearance. "Which way might you be goin', Ricks?" he asked wistfully. "Same place I started fer," said Ricks. "Kentucky." The will-o'-the-wisp, which had been hiding his light, suddenly swung it full in the eyes of Sandy. Once more he saw the little maid of his dreams, and once more he threw discretion to the winds and followed the vision. Hastily collecting his few possessions, he rolled them into a bundle, and slipping the surprised kitten into his pocket, he gladly followed Ricks once more out into the broad green meadows, along the white and shining roads that lead over the hills to Kentucky. CHAPTER V SANDY RETIRES FROM BUSINESS "This here is too blame slow fer me," said Ricks, one chilly night in late September, as he and Sandy huddled against a haystack and settled up their weekly accounts. "Fifty-five cents! Now ain't that a' o'nery dab? Here's a quarter fer you and thirty cents fer me; that's as even as you kin split it." "It's the microscopes that'll be sellin'," said Sandy, hopefully, as he pulled his coat collar about his ears and shivered. "The man as sold 'em to me said they was a great bargain entirely. He thought there was money in 'em." "For him," said Ricks, contemptuously. "It's like the man what gulled us on the penknives. I lay to git even with him, all right." "But he give us the night's lodgin' and some breakfast," said Sandy. Ricks took a long drink from a short bottle, then holding it before him, he said impressively: "A feller could do me ninety-nine good turns, and if he done me one bad one it would wipe 'em all out. I got to git even with anybody what does me dirty, if it takes me all my life." "But don't you forget to remember?" "Not me. I ain't that kind." Sandy leaned wearily against the haystack and tried to shelter himself from the wind. A continued diet of bread and water had made him sensitive to the changes in the weather. "This here grub is kinder hard on yer head-rails," said Ricks, trying to bite through a piece of stale bread. A baker had let them have three loaves for a dime because they were old and hard. Sandy cast a longing look at Ricks's short bottle. It seemed to remedy so many ills, heat or cold, thirst or hunger. But the strict principles applied during his tender years made him hesitate. "I wish we hadn't lost the kitten," he said, feeling the need of a more cheerful companion. "I'm a-goin' to git another dawg," announced Ricks. "I'm sick of this here doin's." "Ain't we goin' to be turfmen?" asked Sandy, who had listened by the hour to thrilling accounts of life on the track, and had accepted Ricks's ambition as his own. "Not on twenty cents per week," growled Ricks. Sandy's heart sank; he knew what a new dog meant. He burrowed in the hay and tried to sleep, but there was a queer pain that seemed to catch hold of his breath whenever he breathed down deep. It rained the next day, and they tramped disconsolately through village after village. They had oil-cloth covers for their baskets, but their own backs were soaked to the skin. Toward evening they came to the top of a hill, from which they could look directly down upon a large town lying comfortably in the crook of a river's elbow. The rain had stopped, and the belated sun, struggling through the clouds, made up for lost time by reflecting itself in every curve of the winding stream, in every puddle along the road, and in every pane of glass that faced the west. "That's a nobby hoss," said Ricks, pointing down the hill. "What's the matter with the feller?" A slight, delicate-looking young man was lying in the road, between the horse and the fence. As the boys came up he stirred and tried to rise. "He's off his nut," said Ricks, starting to pass on; but Sandy stopped. "Get a fall?" he asked. The strange boy shook his head. "I guess I fainted. I must have ridden too hard. I'll be all right in a minute." He leaned his head against a tree and closed his eyes. Sandy eyed him curiously, taking in all the details of his riding-costume down to the short whip with the silver mounting. "I say, Ricks," he called to his companion, who was inspecting the horse, "can't we do somethin' for him?" Ricks reluctantly produced the short bottle. "I'm all right," insisted the boy, "if you'll just give me a lift to the saddle." But his eager eyes followed the bottle, and before Ricks had returned it to his pocket he held out his hand. "I believe I will take a drink if you don't mind." He drained the contents and then handed a coin to Ricks. "Now, if you'll help me," continued the stranger. "There! Thank you very much." "Say, what town is this, anyway?" asked Ricks. "Clayton," said the boy, trying to keep his horse from backing. "Looks like somethin' was doin'," said Ricks. "Circus, I believe." "Then I don't blame your nag for wantin' to go back!" cried Sandy. "Come on, Ricks; let's take in the show!" Half-way down the hill he turned. "Haven't we seen that fellow before, Ricks?" "Not as I knows of. He looked kinder pale and shaky, but you bet yer life he knowed how to hit the bottle." "He was sick," urged Sandy. "An' thirsty," added Ricks, with a smile of superior wisdom. The circus seemed such a timely opportunity to do business that they decided to rent a stand that night and sell their wares on the street corner. Ricks went on into town to arrange matters, while Sandy stopped in a grocery to buy their supper. His interest in the show had been of short duration. He felt listless and tired, something seemed to be buzzing continually in his head, and he shivered in his damp clothes. In the grocery he sat on a barrel and leaned his head against the wall. "What you shivering about?" asked the fat woman behind the counter, as she tied up his small package. "I feel like me skeleton was doin' a jig inside of me," said Sandy through chattering teeth. "Looks to me like you got a chill," said the fat woman. "You wait here, and I'll go git you some hot coffee." She disappeared in the rear of the store, and soon returned with a small coffee-pot and a cup and saucer. Sandy drank two cups and a half, then he asked the price. "Price?" repeated the woman, indignantly. "I reckon you don't know which side of the Ohio River you're on!" Sandy made up in gratitude what she declined in cash, and started on his way. At the corner of Main street and the bridge he found Ricks, who had rented a stand and was already arranging his wares. Sandy knelt on the sidewalk and unpacked his basket. "Only three bars of soap and seventy-five microscopes!" he exclaimed ruefully. "Let's be layin' fine stress on the microscopes, Ricks." "You do the jawin', Sandy. I ain't much on givin' 'em the talk," said Ricks. "Chuck a jolly at 'em and keep 'em hangin' round." As dark came on, trade began. The three bars of soap were sold, and a purple necktie. Sandy saw that public taste must be guided in the proper direction. He stepped up on a box and began eloquently to enumerate the diverse uses of microscopes. At each end of the stand a flaring torch lighted up the scene. The light fell on the careless, laughing faces in front, on Ricks Wilson, black-browed and suspicious, in the rear, and it fell full on Sandy, who stood on high and harangued the crowd. It fell on his broad, straight shoulders and on his shining tumbled hair; but it was not the light of the torch that gave the brightness to his eyes and the flush to his cheek. His head was throbbing, but he felt a curious sense of elation. He felt that he could stand there and talk the rest of his life. He made the crowd listen, he made it laugh, he made it buy. He told stories and sang songs, he coaxed and persuaded, until only a few microscopes were left and the old cigar-box was heavy with silver. "Step right up and take a look at a fly's leg! Every one ought to have a microscope in his home. When you get hard up it will make a dime look like a dollar, and a dollar like a five-dollar gold piece. Step right up! I ain't kiddin' you. Five cents for two looks, and fifteen for the microscope." Suddenly he faltered. At the edge of the crowd he had recognized two faces. They were sensitive slender faces, strangely alike in feature and unlike in expression. The young horseman of the afternoon was impatiently pushing his way through the crowd, while close behind him was a dainty girl with brown eyes slightly lifted at the outer corners, who held back in laughing wonder to watch the scene. "Ricks," said Sandy, lowering his voice unsteadily, "is this Kentucky?" "Yep; we crossed the line to-day." "I can't talk no more," said Sandy. "You'll have to be doin' it. I'm sick." It was not only the fever that was burning in his veins, and making him bury his hot head in his hands and wish he had never been born. It was shame and humiliation, and all because of the look on the face of the girl at the edge of the crowd. He sat in the shadow of the big box and fought his fight. The coffee and the excitement no longer kept him up; he was faint, and his breath came short. Above him he heard Ricks's rasping voice still talking to the few customers who were left. He knew, without glancing up, just how Ricks looked when he said the words; he knew how his teeth pushed his lips back, and how his restless little eyes watched everything at once. A sudden fierce repulsion swept over him for peddling, for Ricks, for himself. "And to think," he whispered, with a sob in his throat, "that I can't ever speak to a girl like that!" Ricks, jubilant over the success of the evening, decided to follow the circus, which was to be in the next town on the following day. "It ain't fur," he said. "We kin push on to-night and be ready to open early in the morning." Sandy, miserable in body and spirit, mechanically obeyed instructions. His head was getting queerer all the time, and he could not remember whether it was day or night. About a mile from Clayton he sank down by the road. "Say, Ricks," he said abruptly; "I'm after quittin' peddlin'." "What you goin' to do?" "I'm goin' to school." If Sandy had announced his intention of putting on baby clothes and being wheeled in a perambulator, Ricks could not have been more astonished. "What?" he asked in genuine doubt. "'Cause I want to be the right sort," burst out Sandy, passionately. "This ain't the way you get to be the right sort." Ricks surveyed him contemptuously. "Look-a here, are you comin' along of me or not?" "I can't," said Sandy, weakly. Ricks shifted his pack, and with never a parting word or a backward look he left his business partner of three months lying by the roadside, and tramped away in the darkness. Sandy started up to follow him; he tried to call, but he had no strength. He lay with his face on the road and talked. He knew there was nobody to listen, but still he kept on, softly talking about microscopes and pink soap, crying out again and again that he couldn't ever speak to a girl like that. After a long while somebody came. At first he thought he must have gone back to the land behind the peat-flames, for it was a great black witch who bent over him, and he instinctively felt about in the grass for the tender, soft hand which he used to press against his cheek. He found instead the hand of the witch herself, and he drew back in terror. "Fer de Lawd sake, honey, what's de matter wif you?" asked a kindly voice. Sandy opened his eyes. A tall old negro woman bent over him, her head tied up in a turban, and a shawl about her shoulders. "Did you git runned over?" she asked, peering down at him anxiously. Sandy tried to explain, but it was all the old mixture of soap and microscopes and never being able to speak to her. He knew he was talking at random, but he could not say the things he thought. "Where'd you come from, boy?" "Curragh Chase, Limerick," murmured Sandy. "'Fore de Lawd, he's done been cunjered!" cried the old woman, aghast. "I'll git it outen of you, chile. You jus' come home wif yer Aunt Melvy; she'll take keer of you. Put yer arm on my shoulder; dat's right. Don't you mind where you gwine at. I got yer bundle. It ain't fur. Hit's dat little house a-hangin' on de side of de hill. Dey calls it 'Who'd 'a' Thought It,' 'ca'se you nebber would 'a' thought of puttin' a house dere. Dat's right; lean on yer mammy. I'll git dem old cunjers outen you." Thus encouraged and supported, Sandy stumbled on through the dark, up a hillside that seemed never to end, across a bridge, then into a tiny log cabin, where he dropped exhausted. Off and on during the night he knew that there was a fire in the room, and that strange things were happening to him. But it was all so queer and unnatural that he did not know where the dreams left off and the real began. He was vaguely conscious of his left foot being tied to the right bedpost, of a lock of his hair being cut off and burned on the hearth, and of a low monotonous chant that seemed to rise and fall with the flicker of the flames. And when he cried out with the pain in his sleep, a kindly black face bent over him, and the chant changed into a soothing murmur: "Nebber you min', sonny; Aunt Melvy gwine git dem cunjers out. She gwine stay by you. You hol' on to her han', an' go to sleep; she'll git dem old cunjers out." CHAPTER VI HOLLIS FARM Clayton was an easy-going, prosperous old town which, in the enthusiasm of youth, had started to climb the long hill to the north, but growing indolent with age, | joy | How many times the word 'joy' appears in the text? | 3 |
versts in two hours! Meanwhile the clouds had descended, hail and snow fell; the wind, bursting into the ravines, howled and whistled like Nightingale the Robber. [16] Soon the stone cross was hidden in the mist, the billows of which, in ever denser and more compact masses, rushed in from the east... Concerning that stone cross, by the way, there exists the strange, but widespread, tradition that it had been set up by the Emperor Peter the First when travelling through the Caucasus. In the first place, however, the Emperor went no farther than Daghestan; and, in the second place, there is an inscription in large letters on the cross itself, to the effect that it had been erected by order of General Ermolov, and that too in the year 1824. Nevertheless, the tradition has taken such firm root, in spite of the inscription, that really you do not know what to believe; the more so, as it is not the custom to believe inscriptions. To reach the station Kobi, we still had to descend about five versts, across ice-covered rocks and plashy snow. The horses were exhausted; we were freezing; the snowstorm droned with ever-increasing violence, exactly like the storms of our own northern land, only its wild melodies were sadder and more melancholy. "O Exile," I thought, "thou art weeping for thy wide, free steppes! There mayest thou unfold thy cold wings, but here thou art stifled and confined, like an eagle beating his wings, with a shriek, against the grating of his iron cage!" "A bad look out," said the staff-captain. "Look! There's nothing to be seen all round but mist and snow. At any moment we may tumble into an abyss or stick fast in a cleft; and a little lower down, I dare say, the Baidara has risen so high that there is no getting across it. Oh, this Asia, I know it! Like people, like rivers! There's no trusting them at all!" The drivers, shouting and cursing, belaboured the horses, which snorted, resisted obstinately, and refused to budge on any account, notwithstanding the eloquence of the whips. "Your honour," one of the drivers said to me at length, "you see, we will never reach Kobi to-day. Won't you give orders to turn to the left while we can? There is something black yonder on the slope--probably huts. Travellers always stop there in bad weather, sir. They say," he added, pointing to the Ossetes, "that they will lead us there if you will give them a tip." "I know that, my friend, I know that without your telling me," said the staff-captain. "Oh, these beasts! They are delighted to seize any pretext for extorting a tip!" "You must confess, however," I said, "that we should be worse off without them." "Just so, just so," he growled to himself. "I know them well--these guides! They scent out by instinct a chance of taking advantage of people. As if it was impossible to find the way without them!" Accordingly we turned aside to the left, and, somehow or other, after a good deal of trouble, made our way to the wretched shelter, which consisted of two huts built of stone slabs and rubble, surrounded by a wall of the same material. Our ragged hosts received us with alacrity. I learned afterwards that the Government supplies them with money and food upon condition that they put up travellers who are overtaken by storm. CHAPTER VIII "ALL is for the best," I said, sitting down close by the fire. "Now you will finish telling me your story about Bela. I am certain that what you have already told me was not the end of it." "Why are you so certain?" answered the staff-captain, winking and smiling slyly. "Because things don't happen like that. A story with such an unusual beginning must also have an unusual ending." "You have guessed, of course"... "I am very glad to hear it." "It is all very well for you to be glad, but, indeed, it makes me sad when I think of it. Bela was a splendid girl. In the end I grew accustomed to her just as if she had been my own daughter, and she loved me. I must tell you that I have no family. I have had no news of my father and mother for twelve years or so, and, in my earlier days, I never thought of providing myself with a wife--and now, you know, it wouldn't do. So I was glad to have found someone to spoil. She used to sing to us or dance the Lezginka. [17].. And what a dancer she was! I have seen our own ladies in provincial society; and on one occasion, sir, about twenty years ago, I was even in the Nobles' Club at Moscow--but was there a woman to be compared with her? Not one! Grigori Aleksandrovich dressed her up like a doll, petted and pampered her, and it was simply astonishing to see how pretty she grew while she lived with us. The sunburn disappeared from her face and hands, and a rosy colour came into her cheeks... What a merry girl she was! Always making fun of me, the little rogue!... Heaven forgive her!" "And when you told her of her father's death?" "We kept it a secret from her for a long time, until she had grown accustomed to her position; and then, when she was told, she cried for a day or two and forgot all about it. "For four months or so everything went on as well as it possibly could. Grigori Aleksandrovich, as I think I have already mentioned, was passionately fond of hunting; he was always craving to be off into the forest after boars or wild goats--but now it would be as much as he would do to go beyond the fortress rampart. All at once, however, I saw that he was beginning again to have fits of abstraction, walking about his room with his hands clasped behind his back. One day after that, without telling anyone, he set off shooting. During the whole morning he was not to be seen; then the same thing happened another time, and so on--oftener and oftener... "'This looks bad!' I said to myself. 'Something must have come between them!' "One morning I paid them a visit--I can see it all in my mind's eye, as if it was happening now. Bela was sitting on the bed, wearing a black silk jacket, and looking rather pale and so sad that I was alarmed. "'Where is Pechorin?' I asked. "'Hunting.' "'When did he go--to-day?' "'She was silent, as if she found a difficulty in answering. "'No, he has been gone since yesterday,' she said at length, with a heavy sigh. "'Surely nothing has happened to him!' "'Yesterday I thought and thought the whole day,' she answered through her tears; 'I imagined all sorts of misfortunes. At one time I fancied that he had been wounded by a wild boar, at another time, that he had been carried off by a Chechene into the mountains... But, now, I have come to think that he no longer loves me.' "'In truth, my dear girl, you could not have imagined anything worse!' "She burst out crying; then, proudly raising her head, she wiped away the tears and continued: "'If he does not love me, then who prevents him sending me home? I am not putting any constraint on him. But, if things go on like this, I will go away myself--I am not a slave, I am a prince's daughter!'... "I tried to talk her over. "'Listen, Bela. You see it is impossible for him to stop in here with you for ever, as if he was sewn on to your petticoat. He is a young man and fond of hunting. Off he'll go, but you will find that he will come back; and, if you are going to be unhappy, you will soon make him tired of you.' "'True, true!' she said. 'I will be merry.' "And with a burst of laughter, she seized her tambourine, began to sing, dance, and gambol around me. But that did not last long either; she fell upon the bed again and buried her face in her hands. "What could I do with her? You know I have never been accustomed to the society of women. I thought and thought how to cheer her up, but couldn't hit on anything. For some time both of us remained silent... A most unpleasant situation, sir! "At length I said to her: "'Would you like us to go and take a walk on the rampart? The weather is splendid.' "This was in September, and indeed it was a wonderful day, bright and not too hot. The mountains could be seen as clearly as though they were but a hand's-breadth away. We went, and walked in silence to and fro along the rampart of the fortress. At length she sat down on the sward, and I sat beside her. In truth, now, it is funny to think of it all! I used to run after her just like a kind of children's nurse! "Our fortress was situated in a lofty position, and the view from the rampart was superb. On one side, the wide clearing, seamed by a few clefts, was bounded by the forest which stretched out to the very ridge of the mountains. Here and there, on the clearing, villages were to be seen sending forth their smoke, and there were droves of horses roaming about. On the other side flowed a tiny stream, and close to its banks came the dense undergrowth which covered the flinty heights joining the principal chain of the Caucasus. We sat in a corner of the bastion, so that we could see everything on both sides. Suddenly I perceived someone on a grey horse riding out of the forest; nearer and nearer he approached until finally he stopped on the far side of the river, about a hundred fathoms from us, and began to wheel his horse round and round like one possessed. 'Strange!' I thought. "'Look, look, Bela,' I said, 'you've got young eyes--what sort of a horseman is that? Who is it he has come to amuse?'... "'It is Kazbich!' she exclaimed after a glance. "'Ah, the robber! Come to laugh at us, has he?' "I looked closely, and sure enough it was Kazbich, with his swarthy face, and as ragged and dirty as ever. "'It is my father's horse!' said Bela, seizing my arm. "She was trembling like a leaf and her eyes were sparkling. "'Aha!' I said to myself. 'There is robber's blood in your veins still, my dear!' "'Come here,' I said to the sentry. 'Look to your gun and unhorse that gallant for me--and you shall have a silver ruble.' "'Very well, your honour, only he won't keep still.' "'Tell him to!' I said, with a laugh. "'Hey, friend!' cried the sentry, waving his hand. 'Wait a bit. What are you spinning round like a humming-top for?' "Kazbich halted and gave ear to the sentry--probably thinking that we were going to parley with him. Quite the contrary!... My grenadier took aim... Bang!... Missed!... Just as the powder flashed in the pan Kazbich jogged his horse, which gave a bound to one side. He stood up in his stirrups, shouted something in his own language, made a threatening gesture with his whip--and was off. "'Aren't you ashamed of yourself?' I said to the sentry. "'He has gone away to die, your honour,' he answered. 'There's no killing a man of that cursed race at one stroke.' "A quarter of an hour later Pechorin returned from hunting. Bela threw herself on his neck without a single complaint, without a single reproach for his lengthy absence!... Even I was angry with him by this time! "'Good heavens!' I said; 'why, I tell you, Kazbich was here on the other side of the river just a moment ago, and we shot at him. How easily you might have run up against him, you know! These mountaineers are a vindictive race! Do you suppose he does not guess that you gave Azamat some help? And I wager that he recognised Bela to-day! I know he was desperately fond of her a year ago--he told me so himself--and, if he had had any hope of getting together a proper bridegroom's gift, he would certainly have sought her in marriage.' "At this Pechorin became thoughtful. "'Yes,' he answered. 'We must be more cautious--Bela, from this day forth you mustn't walk on the rampart any more.' "In the evening I had a lengthy explanation with him. I was vexed that his feelings towards the poor girl had changed; to say nothing of his spending half the day hunting, his manner towards her had become cold. He rarely caressed her, and she was beginning perceptibly to pine away; her little face was becoming drawn, her large eyes growing dim. "'What are you sighing for, Bela?' I would ask her. 'Are you sad?' "'No!' "'Do you want anything?' "'No!' "'You are pining for your kinsfolk?' "'I have none!' "Sometimes for whole days not a word could be drawn from her but 'Yes' and 'No.' "So I straightway proceeded to talk to Pechorin about her." CHAPTER IX "'LISTEN, Maksim Maksimych,' said Pechorin. 'Mine is an unfortunate disposition; whether it is the result of my upbringing or whether it is innate--I know not. I only know this, that if I am the cause of unhappiness in others I myself am no less unhappy. Of course, that is a poor consolation to them--only the fact remains that such is the case. In my early youth, from the moment I ceased to be under the guardianship of my relations, I began madly to enjoy all the pleasures which money could buy--and, of course, such pleasures became irksome to me. Then I launched out into the world of fashion--and that, too, soon palled upon me. I fell in love with fashionable beauties and was loved by them, but my imagination and egoism alone were aroused; my heart remained empty... I began to read, to study--but sciences also became utterly wearisome to me. I saw that neither fame nor happiness depends on them in the least, because the happiest people are the uneducated, and fame is good fortune, to attain which you have only to be smart. Then I grew bored... Soon afterwards I was transferred to the Caucasus; and that was the happiest time of my life. I hoped that under the bullets of the Chechenes boredom could not exist--a vain hope! In a month I grew so accustomed to the buzzing of the bullets and to the proximity of death that, to tell the truth, I paid more attention to the gnats--and I became more bored than ever, because I had lost what was almost my last hope. When I saw Bela in my own house; when, for the first time, I held her on my knee and kissed her black locks, I, fool that I was, thought that she was an angel sent to me by sympathetic fate... Again I was mistaken; the love of a savage is little better than that of your lady of quality, the barbaric ignorance and simplicity of the one weary you as much as the coquetry of the other. I am not saying that I do not love her still; I am grateful to her for a few fairly sweet moments; I would give my life for her--only I am bored with her... Whether I am a fool or a villain I know not; but this is certain, I am also most deserving of pity--perhaps more than she. My soul has been spoiled by the world, my imagination is unquiet, my heart insatiate. To me everything is of little moment. I become as easily accustomed to grief as to joy, and my life grows emptier day by day. One expedient only is left to me--travel. "'As soon as I can, I shall set off--but not to Europe. Heaven forfend! I shall go to America, to Arabia, to India--perchance I shall die somewhere on the way. At any rate, I am convinced that, thanks to storms and bad roads, that last consolation will not quickly be exhausted!' "For a long time he went on speaking thus, and his words have remained stamped upon my memory, because it was the first time that I had heard such things from a man of five-and-twenty--and Heaven grant it may be the last. Isn't it astonishing? Tell me, please," continued the staff-captain, appealing to me. "You used to live in the Capital, I think, and that not so very long ago. Is it possible that the young men there are all like that?" I replied that there were a good many people who used the same sort of language, that, probably, there might even be some who spoke in all sincerity; that disillusionment, moreover, like all other vogues, having had its beginning in the higher strata of society, had descended to the lower, where it was being worn threadbare, and that, now, those who were really and truly bored strove to conceal their misfortune as if it were a vice. The staff-captain did not understand these subtleties, shook his head, and smiled slyly. "Anyhow, I suppose it was the French who introduced the fashion?" "No, the English." "Aha, there you are!" he answered. "They always have been arrant drunkards, you know!" Involuntarily I recalled to mind a certain lady, living in Moscow, who used to maintain that Byron was nothing more nor less than a drunkard. However, the staff-captain's observation was more excusable; in order to abstain from strong drink, he naturally endeavoured to convince himself that all the misfortunes in the world are the result of drunkenness. CHAPTER X MEANWHILE the staff-captain continued his story. "Kazbich never put in an appearance again; but somehow--I don't know why--I could not get the idea out of my head that he had had a reason for coming, and that some mischievous scheme was in his mind. "Well, one day Pechorin tried to persuade me to go boar-hunting with him. For a long time I refused. What novelty was a wild boar to me? "However, off he dragged me, all the same. We took four or five soldiers and set out early in the morning. Up till ten o'clock we scurried about the reeds and the forest--there wasn't a wild beast to be found! "'I say, oughtn't we to be going back?' I said. 'What's the use of sticking at it? It is evident enough that we have happened on an unlucky day!' "But, in spite of heat and fatigue, Pechorin didn't like to return empty-handed... That is just the kind of man he was; whatever he set his heart on he had to have--evidently, in his childhood, he had been spoiled by an indulgent mother. At last, at midday, we discovered one of those cursed wild boars--Bang! Bang!--No good!--Off it went into the reeds. That was an unlucky day, to be sure!... So, after a short rest, we set off homeward... "We rode in silence, side by side, giving the horses their head. We had almost reached the fortress, and only the brushwood concealed it from view. Suddenly a shot rang out... We glanced at each other, both struck with the selfsame suspicion... We galloped headlong in the direction of the shot, looked, and saw the soldiers clustered together on the rampart and pointing towards a field, along which a rider was flying at full speed, holding something white across his saddle. Grigori Aleksandrovich yelled like any Chechene, whipped his gun from its cover, and gave chase--I after him. "Luckily, thanks to our unsuccessful hunt, our horses were not jaded; they strained under the saddle, and with every moment we drew nearer and nearer... At length I recognised Kazbich, only I could not make out what it was that he was holding in front of him. "Then I drew level with Pechorin and shouted to him: "'It is Kazbich!' "He looked at me, nodded, and struck his horse with his whip. "At last we were within gunshot of Kazbich. Whether it was that his horse was jaded or not so good as ours, I don't know, but, in spite of all his efforts, it did not get along very fast. I fancy at that moment he remembered his Karagyoz! "I looked at Pechorin. He was taking aim as he galloped... "'Don't shoot,' I cried. 'Save the shot! We will catch up with him as it is.' "Oh, these young men! Always taking fire at the wrong moment! The shot rang out and the bullet broke one of the horse's hind legs. It gave a few fiery leaps forward, stumbled, and fell to its knees. Kazbich sprang off, and then we perceived that it was a woman he was holding in his arms--a woman wrapped in a veil. It was Bela--poor Bela! He shouted something to us in his own language and raised his dagger over her... Delay was useless; I fired in my turn, at haphazard. Probably the bullet struck him in the shoulder, because he dropped his hand suddenly. When the smoke cleared off, we could see the wounded horse lying on the ground and Bela beside it; but Kazbich, his gun flung away, was clambering like a cat up the cliff, through the brushwood. I should have liked to have brought him down from there--but I hadn't a charge ready. We jumped off our horses and rushed to Bela. Poor girl! She was lying motionless, and the blood was pouring in streams from her wound. The villain! If he had struck her to the heart--well and good, everything would at least have been finished there and then; but to stab her in the back like that--the scoundrel! She was unconscious. We tore the veil into strips and bound up the wound as tightly as we could. In vain Pechorin kissed her cold lips--it was impossible to bring her to. "Pechorin mounted; I lifted Bela from the ground and somehow managed to place her before him on his saddle; he put his arm round her and we rode back. "'Look here, Maksim Maksimych,' said Grigori Aleksandrovich, after a few moments of silence. 'We will never bring her in alive like this.' "'True!' I said, and we put our horses to a full gallop." CHAPTER XI "A CROWD was awaiting us at the fortress gate. Carefully we carried the wounded girl to Pechorin's quarters, and then we sent for the doctor. The latter was drunk, but he came, examined the wound, and announced that she could not live more than a day. He was mistaken, though." "She recovered?" I asked the staff-captain, seizing him by the arm, and involuntarily rejoicing. "No," he replied, "but the doctor was so far mistaken that she lived two days longer." "Explain, though, how Kazbich made off with her!" "It was like this: in spite of Pechorin's prohibition, she went out of the fortress and down to the river. It was a very hot day, you know, and she sat on a rock and dipped her feet in the water. Up crept Kazbich, pounced upon her, silenced her, and dragged her into the bushes. Then he sprang on his horse and made off. In the meantime she succeeded in crying out, the sentries took the alarm, fired, but wide of the mark; and thereupon we arrived on the scene." "But what did Kazbich want to carry her off for?" "Good gracious! Why, everyone knows these Circassians are a race of thieves; they can't keep their hands off anything that is left lying about! They may not want a thing, but they will steal it, for all that. Still, you mustn't be too hard on them. And, besides, he had been in love with her for a long time." "And Bela died?" "Yes, she died, but she suffered for a long time, and we were fairly knocked up with her, I can tell you. About ten o'clock in the evening she came to herself. We were sitting by her bed. As soon as ever she opened her eyes she began to call Pechorin. "'I am here beside you, my janechka' (that is, 'my darling'), he answered, taking her by the hand. "'I shall die,' she said. "We began to comfort her, telling her that the doctor had promised infallibly to cure her. She shook her little head and turned to the wall--she did not want to die!... "At night she became delirious, her head burned, at times a feverish paroxysm convulsed her whole body. She talked incoherently about her father, her brother; she yearned for the mountains, for her home... Then she spoke of Pechorin also, called him various fond names, or reproached him for having ceased to love his janechka. "He listened to her in silence, his head sunk in his hands; but yet, during the whole time, I did not notice a single tear-drop on his lashes. I do not know whether he was actually unable to weep or was mastering himself; but for my part I have never seen anything more pitiful. "Towards morning the delirium passed off. For an hour or so she lay motionless, pale, and so weak that it was hardly possible to observe that she was breathing. After that she grew better and began to talk: only about what, think you? Such thoughts come only to the dying!... She lamented that she was not a Christian, that in the other world her soul would never meet the soul of Grigori Aleksandrovich, and that in Paradise another woman would be his companion. The thought occurred to me to baptize her before her death. I told her my idea; she looked at me undecidedly, and for a long time was unable to utter a word. Finally she answered that she would die in the faith in which she had been born. A whole day passed thus. What a change that day made in her! Her pale cheeks fell in, her eyes grew ever so large, her lips burned. She felt a consuming heat within her, as though a red-hot blade was piercing her breast. "The second night came on. We did not close our eyes or leave the bedside. She suffered terribly, and groaned; and directly the pain began to abate she endeavoured to assure Grigori Aleksandrovich that she felt better, tried to persuade him to go to bed, kissed his hand and would not let it out of hers. Before the morning she began to feel the death agony and to toss about. She knocked the bandage off, and the blood flowed afresh. When the wound was bound up again she grew quiet for a moment and begged Pechorin to kiss her. He fell on his knees beside the bed, raised her head from the pillow, and pressed his lips to hers--which were growing cold. She threw her trembling arms closely round his neck, as if with that kiss she wished to yield up her soul to him.--No, she did well to die! Why, what would have become of her if Grigori Aleksandrovich had abandoned her? And that is what would have happened, sooner or later. "During half the following day she was calm, silent and docile, however much the doctor tortured her with his fomentations and mixtures. "'Good heavens!' I said to him, 'you know you said yourself that she was certain to die, so what is the good of all these preparations of yours?' "'Even so, it is better to do all this,' he replied, 'so that I may have an easy conscience.' "A pretty conscience, forsooth! "After midday Bela began to suffer from thirst. We opened the windows, but it was hotter outside than in the room; we placed ice round the bed--all to no purpose. I knew that that intolerable thirst was a sign of the approaching end, and I told Pechorin so. "'Water, water!' she said in a hoarse voice, raising herself up from the bed. "Pechorin turned pale as a sheet, seized a glass, filled it, and gave it to her. I covered my eyes with my hands and began to say a prayer--I can't remember what... Yes, my friend, many a time have I seen people die in hospitals or on the field of battle, but this was something altogether different! Still, this one thing grieves me, I must confess: she died without even once calling me to mind. Yet I loved her, I should think, like a father!... Well, God forgive her!... And, to tell the truth, what am I that she should have remembered me when she was dying?... "As soon as she had drunk the water, she grew easier--but in about three minutes she breathed her last! We put a looking-glass to her lips--it was undimmed! "I led Pechorin from the room, and we went on to the fortress rampart. For a long time we walked side by side, to and fro, speaking not a word and with our hands clasped behind our backs. His face expressed nothing out of the common--and that vexed me. Had I been in his place, I should have died of grief. At length he sat down on the ground in the shade and began to draw something in the sand with his stick. More for form's sake than anything, you know, I tried to console him and began to talk. He raised his head and burst into a laugh! At that laugh a cold shudder ran through me... I went away to order a coffin. "I confess it was partly to distract my thoughts that I busied myself in that way. I possessed a little piece of Circassian stuff, and I | black | How many times the word 'black' appears in the text? | 3 |
versts in two hours! Meanwhile the clouds had descended, hail and snow fell; the wind, bursting into the ravines, howled and whistled like Nightingale the Robber. [16] Soon the stone cross was hidden in the mist, the billows of which, in ever denser and more compact masses, rushed in from the east... Concerning that stone cross, by the way, there exists the strange, but widespread, tradition that it had been set up by the Emperor Peter the First when travelling through the Caucasus. In the first place, however, the Emperor went no farther than Daghestan; and, in the second place, there is an inscription in large letters on the cross itself, to the effect that it had been erected by order of General Ermolov, and that too in the year 1824. Nevertheless, the tradition has taken such firm root, in spite of the inscription, that really you do not know what to believe; the more so, as it is not the custom to believe inscriptions. To reach the station Kobi, we still had to descend about five versts, across ice-covered rocks and plashy snow. The horses were exhausted; we were freezing; the snowstorm droned with ever-increasing violence, exactly like the storms of our own northern land, only its wild melodies were sadder and more melancholy. "O Exile," I thought, "thou art weeping for thy wide, free steppes! There mayest thou unfold thy cold wings, but here thou art stifled and confined, like an eagle beating his wings, with a shriek, against the grating of his iron cage!" "A bad look out," said the staff-captain. "Look! There's nothing to be seen all round but mist and snow. At any moment we may tumble into an abyss or stick fast in a cleft; and a little lower down, I dare say, the Baidara has risen so high that there is no getting across it. Oh, this Asia, I know it! Like people, like rivers! There's no trusting them at all!" The drivers, shouting and cursing, belaboured the horses, which snorted, resisted obstinately, and refused to budge on any account, notwithstanding the eloquence of the whips. "Your honour," one of the drivers said to me at length, "you see, we will never reach Kobi to-day. Won't you give orders to turn to the left while we can? There is something black yonder on the slope--probably huts. Travellers always stop there in bad weather, sir. They say," he added, pointing to the Ossetes, "that they will lead us there if you will give them a tip." "I know that, my friend, I know that without your telling me," said the staff-captain. "Oh, these beasts! They are delighted to seize any pretext for extorting a tip!" "You must confess, however," I said, "that we should be worse off without them." "Just so, just so," he growled to himself. "I know them well--these guides! They scent out by instinct a chance of taking advantage of people. As if it was impossible to find the way without them!" Accordingly we turned aside to the left, and, somehow or other, after a good deal of trouble, made our way to the wretched shelter, which consisted of two huts built of stone slabs and rubble, surrounded by a wall of the same material. Our ragged hosts received us with alacrity. I learned afterwards that the Government supplies them with money and food upon condition that they put up travellers who are overtaken by storm. CHAPTER VIII "ALL is for the best," I said, sitting down close by the fire. "Now you will finish telling me your story about Bela. I am certain that what you have already told me was not the end of it." "Why are you so certain?" answered the staff-captain, winking and smiling slyly. "Because things don't happen like that. A story with such an unusual beginning must also have an unusual ending." "You have guessed, of course"... "I am very glad to hear it." "It is all very well for you to be glad, but, indeed, it makes me sad when I think of it. Bela was a splendid girl. In the end I grew accustomed to her just as if she had been my own daughter, and she loved me. I must tell you that I have no family. I have had no news of my father and mother for twelve years or so, and, in my earlier days, I never thought of providing myself with a wife--and now, you know, it wouldn't do. So I was glad to have found someone to spoil. She used to sing to us or dance the Lezginka. [17].. And what a dancer she was! I have seen our own ladies in provincial society; and on one occasion, sir, about twenty years ago, I was even in the Nobles' Club at Moscow--but was there a woman to be compared with her? Not one! Grigori Aleksandrovich dressed her up like a doll, petted and pampered her, and it was simply astonishing to see how pretty she grew while she lived with us. The sunburn disappeared from her face and hands, and a rosy colour came into her cheeks... What a merry girl she was! Always making fun of me, the little rogue!... Heaven forgive her!" "And when you told her of her father's death?" "We kept it a secret from her for a long time, until she had grown accustomed to her position; and then, when she was told, she cried for a day or two and forgot all about it. "For four months or so everything went on as well as it possibly could. Grigori Aleksandrovich, as I think I have already mentioned, was passionately fond of hunting; he was always craving to be off into the forest after boars or wild goats--but now it would be as much as he would do to go beyond the fortress rampart. All at once, however, I saw that he was beginning again to have fits of abstraction, walking about his room with his hands clasped behind his back. One day after that, without telling anyone, he set off shooting. During the whole morning he was not to be seen; then the same thing happened another time, and so on--oftener and oftener... "'This looks bad!' I said to myself. 'Something must have come between them!' "One morning I paid them a visit--I can see it all in my mind's eye, as if it was happening now. Bela was sitting on the bed, wearing a black silk jacket, and looking rather pale and so sad that I was alarmed. "'Where is Pechorin?' I asked. "'Hunting.' "'When did he go--to-day?' "'She was silent, as if she found a difficulty in answering. "'No, he has been gone since yesterday,' she said at length, with a heavy sigh. "'Surely nothing has happened to him!' "'Yesterday I thought and thought the whole day,' she answered through her tears; 'I imagined all sorts of misfortunes. At one time I fancied that he had been wounded by a wild boar, at another time, that he had been carried off by a Chechene into the mountains... But, now, I have come to think that he no longer loves me.' "'In truth, my dear girl, you could not have imagined anything worse!' "She burst out crying; then, proudly raising her head, she wiped away the tears and continued: "'If he does not love me, then who prevents him sending me home? I am not putting any constraint on him. But, if things go on like this, I will go away myself--I am not a slave, I am a prince's daughter!'... "I tried to talk her over. "'Listen, Bela. You see it is impossible for him to stop in here with you for ever, as if he was sewn on to your petticoat. He is a young man and fond of hunting. Off he'll go, but you will find that he will come back; and, if you are going to be unhappy, you will soon make him tired of you.' "'True, true!' she said. 'I will be merry.' "And with a burst of laughter, she seized her tambourine, began to sing, dance, and gambol around me. But that did not last long either; she fell upon the bed again and buried her face in her hands. "What could I do with her? You know I have never been accustomed to the society of women. I thought and thought how to cheer her up, but couldn't hit on anything. For some time both of us remained silent... A most unpleasant situation, sir! "At length I said to her: "'Would you like us to go and take a walk on the rampart? The weather is splendid.' "This was in September, and indeed it was a wonderful day, bright and not too hot. The mountains could be seen as clearly as though they were but a hand's-breadth away. We went, and walked in silence to and fro along the rampart of the fortress. At length she sat down on the sward, and I sat beside her. In truth, now, it is funny to think of it all! I used to run after her just like a kind of children's nurse! "Our fortress was situated in a lofty position, and the view from the rampart was superb. On one side, the wide clearing, seamed by a few clefts, was bounded by the forest which stretched out to the very ridge of the mountains. Here and there, on the clearing, villages were to be seen sending forth their smoke, and there were droves of horses roaming about. On the other side flowed a tiny stream, and close to its banks came the dense undergrowth which covered the flinty heights joining the principal chain of the Caucasus. We sat in a corner of the bastion, so that we could see everything on both sides. Suddenly I perceived someone on a grey horse riding out of the forest; nearer and nearer he approached until finally he stopped on the far side of the river, about a hundred fathoms from us, and began to wheel his horse round and round like one possessed. 'Strange!' I thought. "'Look, look, Bela,' I said, 'you've got young eyes--what sort of a horseman is that? Who is it he has come to amuse?'... "'It is Kazbich!' she exclaimed after a glance. "'Ah, the robber! Come to laugh at us, has he?' "I looked closely, and sure enough it was Kazbich, with his swarthy face, and as ragged and dirty as ever. "'It is my father's horse!' said Bela, seizing my arm. "She was trembling like a leaf and her eyes were sparkling. "'Aha!' I said to myself. 'There is robber's blood in your veins still, my dear!' "'Come here,' I said to the sentry. 'Look to your gun and unhorse that gallant for me--and you shall have a silver ruble.' "'Very well, your honour, only he won't keep still.' "'Tell him to!' I said, with a laugh. "'Hey, friend!' cried the sentry, waving his hand. 'Wait a bit. What are you spinning round like a humming-top for?' "Kazbich halted and gave ear to the sentry--probably thinking that we were going to parley with him. Quite the contrary!... My grenadier took aim... Bang!... Missed!... Just as the powder flashed in the pan Kazbich jogged his horse, which gave a bound to one side. He stood up in his stirrups, shouted something in his own language, made a threatening gesture with his whip--and was off. "'Aren't you ashamed of yourself?' I said to the sentry. "'He has gone away to die, your honour,' he answered. 'There's no killing a man of that cursed race at one stroke.' "A quarter of an hour later Pechorin returned from hunting. Bela threw herself on his neck without a single complaint, without a single reproach for his lengthy absence!... Even I was angry with him by this time! "'Good heavens!' I said; 'why, I tell you, Kazbich was here on the other side of the river just a moment ago, and we shot at him. How easily you might have run up against him, you know! These mountaineers are a vindictive race! Do you suppose he does not guess that you gave Azamat some help? And I wager that he recognised Bela to-day! I know he was desperately fond of her a year ago--he told me so himself--and, if he had had any hope of getting together a proper bridegroom's gift, he would certainly have sought her in marriage.' "At this Pechorin became thoughtful. "'Yes,' he answered. 'We must be more cautious--Bela, from this day forth you mustn't walk on the rampart any more.' "In the evening I had a lengthy explanation with him. I was vexed that his feelings towards the poor girl had changed; to say nothing of his spending half the day hunting, his manner towards her had become cold. He rarely caressed her, and she was beginning perceptibly to pine away; her little face was becoming drawn, her large eyes growing dim. "'What are you sighing for, Bela?' I would ask her. 'Are you sad?' "'No!' "'Do you want anything?' "'No!' "'You are pining for your kinsfolk?' "'I have none!' "Sometimes for whole days not a word could be drawn from her but 'Yes' and 'No.' "So I straightway proceeded to talk to Pechorin about her." CHAPTER IX "'LISTEN, Maksim Maksimych,' said Pechorin. 'Mine is an unfortunate disposition; whether it is the result of my upbringing or whether it is innate--I know not. I only know this, that if I am the cause of unhappiness in others I myself am no less unhappy. Of course, that is a poor consolation to them--only the fact remains that such is the case. In my early youth, from the moment I ceased to be under the guardianship of my relations, I began madly to enjoy all the pleasures which money could buy--and, of course, such pleasures became irksome to me. Then I launched out into the world of fashion--and that, too, soon palled upon me. I fell in love with fashionable beauties and was loved by them, but my imagination and egoism alone were aroused; my heart remained empty... I began to read, to study--but sciences also became utterly wearisome to me. I saw that neither fame nor happiness depends on them in the least, because the happiest people are the uneducated, and fame is good fortune, to attain which you have only to be smart. Then I grew bored... Soon afterwards I was transferred to the Caucasus; and that was the happiest time of my life. I hoped that under the bullets of the Chechenes boredom could not exist--a vain hope! In a month I grew so accustomed to the buzzing of the bullets and to the proximity of death that, to tell the truth, I paid more attention to the gnats--and I became more bored than ever, because I had lost what was almost my last hope. When I saw Bela in my own house; when, for the first time, I held her on my knee and kissed her black locks, I, fool that I was, thought that she was an angel sent to me by sympathetic fate... Again I was mistaken; the love of a savage is little better than that of your lady of quality, the barbaric ignorance and simplicity of the one weary you as much as the coquetry of the other. I am not saying that I do not love her still; I am grateful to her for a few fairly sweet moments; I would give my life for her--only I am bored with her... Whether I am a fool or a villain I know not; but this is certain, I am also most deserving of pity--perhaps more than she. My soul has been spoiled by the world, my imagination is unquiet, my heart insatiate. To me everything is of little moment. I become as easily accustomed to grief as to joy, and my life grows emptier day by day. One expedient only is left to me--travel. "'As soon as I can, I shall set off--but not to Europe. Heaven forfend! I shall go to America, to Arabia, to India--perchance I shall die somewhere on the way. At any rate, I am convinced that, thanks to storms and bad roads, that last consolation will not quickly be exhausted!' "For a long time he went on speaking thus, and his words have remained stamped upon my memory, because it was the first time that I had heard such things from a man of five-and-twenty--and Heaven grant it may be the last. Isn't it astonishing? Tell me, please," continued the staff-captain, appealing to me. "You used to live in the Capital, I think, and that not so very long ago. Is it possible that the young men there are all like that?" I replied that there were a good many people who used the same sort of language, that, probably, there might even be some who spoke in all sincerity; that disillusionment, moreover, like all other vogues, having had its beginning in the higher strata of society, had descended to the lower, where it was being worn threadbare, and that, now, those who were really and truly bored strove to conceal their misfortune as if it were a vice. The staff-captain did not understand these subtleties, shook his head, and smiled slyly. "Anyhow, I suppose it was the French who introduced the fashion?" "No, the English." "Aha, there you are!" he answered. "They always have been arrant drunkards, you know!" Involuntarily I recalled to mind a certain lady, living in Moscow, who used to maintain that Byron was nothing more nor less than a drunkard. However, the staff-captain's observation was more excusable; in order to abstain from strong drink, he naturally endeavoured to convince himself that all the misfortunes in the world are the result of drunkenness. CHAPTER X MEANWHILE the staff-captain continued his story. "Kazbich never put in an appearance again; but somehow--I don't know why--I could not get the idea out of my head that he had had a reason for coming, and that some mischievous scheme was in his mind. "Well, one day Pechorin tried to persuade me to go boar-hunting with him. For a long time I refused. What novelty was a wild boar to me? "However, off he dragged me, all the same. We took four or five soldiers and set out early in the morning. Up till ten o'clock we scurried about the reeds and the forest--there wasn't a wild beast to be found! "'I say, oughtn't we to be going back?' I said. 'What's the use of sticking at it? It is evident enough that we have happened on an unlucky day!' "But, in spite of heat and fatigue, Pechorin didn't like to return empty-handed... That is just the kind of man he was; whatever he set his heart on he had to have--evidently, in his childhood, he had been spoiled by an indulgent mother. At last, at midday, we discovered one of those cursed wild boars--Bang! Bang!--No good!--Off it went into the reeds. That was an unlucky day, to be sure!... So, after a short rest, we set off homeward... "We rode in silence, side by side, giving the horses their head. We had almost reached the fortress, and only the brushwood concealed it from view. Suddenly a shot rang out... We glanced at each other, both struck with the selfsame suspicion... We galloped headlong in the direction of the shot, looked, and saw the soldiers clustered together on the rampart and pointing towards a field, along which a rider was flying at full speed, holding something white across his saddle. Grigori Aleksandrovich yelled like any Chechene, whipped his gun from its cover, and gave chase--I after him. "Luckily, thanks to our unsuccessful hunt, our horses were not jaded; they strained under the saddle, and with every moment we drew nearer and nearer... At length I recognised Kazbich, only I could not make out what it was that he was holding in front of him. "Then I drew level with Pechorin and shouted to him: "'It is Kazbich!' "He looked at me, nodded, and struck his horse with his whip. "At last we were within gunshot of Kazbich. Whether it was that his horse was jaded or not so good as ours, I don't know, but, in spite of all his efforts, it did not get along very fast. I fancy at that moment he remembered his Karagyoz! "I looked at Pechorin. He was taking aim as he galloped... "'Don't shoot,' I cried. 'Save the shot! We will catch up with him as it is.' "Oh, these young men! Always taking fire at the wrong moment! The shot rang out and the bullet broke one of the horse's hind legs. It gave a few fiery leaps forward, stumbled, and fell to its knees. Kazbich sprang off, and then we perceived that it was a woman he was holding in his arms--a woman wrapped in a veil. It was Bela--poor Bela! He shouted something to us in his own language and raised his dagger over her... Delay was useless; I fired in my turn, at haphazard. Probably the bullet struck him in the shoulder, because he dropped his hand suddenly. When the smoke cleared off, we could see the wounded horse lying on the ground and Bela beside it; but Kazbich, his gun flung away, was clambering like a cat up the cliff, through the brushwood. I should have liked to have brought him down from there--but I hadn't a charge ready. We jumped off our horses and rushed to Bela. Poor girl! She was lying motionless, and the blood was pouring in streams from her wound. The villain! If he had struck her to the heart--well and good, everything would at least have been finished there and then; but to stab her in the back like that--the scoundrel! She was unconscious. We tore the veil into strips and bound up the wound as tightly as we could. In vain Pechorin kissed her cold lips--it was impossible to bring her to. "Pechorin mounted; I lifted Bela from the ground and somehow managed to place her before him on his saddle; he put his arm round her and we rode back. "'Look here, Maksim Maksimych,' said Grigori Aleksandrovich, after a few moments of silence. 'We will never bring her in alive like this.' "'True!' I said, and we put our horses to a full gallop." CHAPTER XI "A CROWD was awaiting us at the fortress gate. Carefully we carried the wounded girl to Pechorin's quarters, and then we sent for the doctor. The latter was drunk, but he came, examined the wound, and announced that she could not live more than a day. He was mistaken, though." "She recovered?" I asked the staff-captain, seizing him by the arm, and involuntarily rejoicing. "No," he replied, "but the doctor was so far mistaken that she lived two days longer." "Explain, though, how Kazbich made off with her!" "It was like this: in spite of Pechorin's prohibition, she went out of the fortress and down to the river. It was a very hot day, you know, and she sat on a rock and dipped her feet in the water. Up crept Kazbich, pounced upon her, silenced her, and dragged her into the bushes. Then he sprang on his horse and made off. In the meantime she succeeded in crying out, the sentries took the alarm, fired, but wide of the mark; and thereupon we arrived on the scene." "But what did Kazbich want to carry her off for?" "Good gracious! Why, everyone knows these Circassians are a race of thieves; they can't keep their hands off anything that is left lying about! They may not want a thing, but they will steal it, for all that. Still, you mustn't be too hard on them. And, besides, he had been in love with her for a long time." "And Bela died?" "Yes, she died, but she suffered for a long time, and we were fairly knocked up with her, I can tell you. About ten o'clock in the evening she came to herself. We were sitting by her bed. As soon as ever she opened her eyes she began to call Pechorin. "'I am here beside you, my janechka' (that is, 'my darling'), he answered, taking her by the hand. "'I shall die,' she said. "We began to comfort her, telling her that the doctor had promised infallibly to cure her. She shook her little head and turned to the wall--she did not want to die!... "At night she became delirious, her head burned, at times a feverish paroxysm convulsed her whole body. She talked incoherently about her father, her brother; she yearned for the mountains, for her home... Then she spoke of Pechorin also, called him various fond names, or reproached him for having ceased to love his janechka. "He listened to her in silence, his head sunk in his hands; but yet, during the whole time, I did not notice a single tear-drop on his lashes. I do not know whether he was actually unable to weep or was mastering himself; but for my part I have never seen anything more pitiful. "Towards morning the delirium passed off. For an hour or so she lay motionless, pale, and so weak that it was hardly possible to observe that she was breathing. After that she grew better and began to talk: only about what, think you? Such thoughts come only to the dying!... She lamented that she was not a Christian, that in the other world her soul would never meet the soul of Grigori Aleksandrovich, and that in Paradise another woman would be his companion. The thought occurred to me to baptize her before her death. I told her my idea; she looked at me undecidedly, and for a long time was unable to utter a word. Finally she answered that she would die in the faith in which she had been born. A whole day passed thus. What a change that day made in her! Her pale cheeks fell in, her eyes grew ever so large, her lips burned. She felt a consuming heat within her, as though a red-hot blade was piercing her breast. "The second night came on. We did not close our eyes or leave the bedside. She suffered terribly, and groaned; and directly the pain began to abate she endeavoured to assure Grigori Aleksandrovich that she felt better, tried to persuade him to go to bed, kissed his hand and would not let it out of hers. Before the morning she began to feel the death agony and to toss about. She knocked the bandage off, and the blood flowed afresh. When the wound was bound up again she grew quiet for a moment and begged Pechorin to kiss her. He fell on his knees beside the bed, raised her head from the pillow, and pressed his lips to hers--which were growing cold. She threw her trembling arms closely round his neck, as if with that kiss she wished to yield up her soul to him.--No, she did well to die! Why, what would have become of her if Grigori Aleksandrovich had abandoned her? And that is what would have happened, sooner or later. "During half the following day she was calm, silent and docile, however much the doctor tortured her with his fomentations and mixtures. "'Good heavens!' I said to him, 'you know you said yourself that she was certain to die, so what is the good of all these preparations of yours?' "'Even so, it is better to do all this,' he replied, 'so that I may have an easy conscience.' "A pretty conscience, forsooth! "After midday Bela began to suffer from thirst. We opened the windows, but it was hotter outside than in the room; we placed ice round the bed--all to no purpose. I knew that that intolerable thirst was a sign of the approaching end, and I told Pechorin so. "'Water, water!' she said in a hoarse voice, raising herself up from the bed. "Pechorin turned pale as a sheet, seized a glass, filled it, and gave it to her. I covered my eyes with my hands and began to say a prayer--I can't remember what... Yes, my friend, many a time have I seen people die in hospitals or on the field of battle, but this was something altogether different! Still, this one thing grieves me, I must confess: she died without even once calling me to mind. Yet I loved her, I should think, like a father!... Well, God forgive her!... And, to tell the truth, what am I that she should have remembered me when she was dying?... "As soon as she had drunk the water, she grew easier--but in about three minutes she breathed her last! We put a looking-glass to her lips--it was undimmed! "I led Pechorin from the room, and we went on to the fortress rampart. For a long time we walked side by side, to and fro, speaking not a word and with our hands clasped behind our backs. His face expressed nothing out of the common--and that vexed me. Had I been in his place, I should have died of grief. At length he sat down on the ground in the shade and began to draw something in the sand with his stick. More for form's sake than anything, you know, I tried to console him and began to talk. He raised his head and burst into a laugh! At that laugh a cold shudder ran through me... I went away to order a coffin. "I confess it was partly to distract my thoughts that I busied myself in that way. I possessed a little piece of Circassian stuff, and I | high | How many times the word 'high' appears in the text? | 1 |
versts in two hours! Meanwhile the clouds had descended, hail and snow fell; the wind, bursting into the ravines, howled and whistled like Nightingale the Robber. [16] Soon the stone cross was hidden in the mist, the billows of which, in ever denser and more compact masses, rushed in from the east... Concerning that stone cross, by the way, there exists the strange, but widespread, tradition that it had been set up by the Emperor Peter the First when travelling through the Caucasus. In the first place, however, the Emperor went no farther than Daghestan; and, in the second place, there is an inscription in large letters on the cross itself, to the effect that it had been erected by order of General Ermolov, and that too in the year 1824. Nevertheless, the tradition has taken such firm root, in spite of the inscription, that really you do not know what to believe; the more so, as it is not the custom to believe inscriptions. To reach the station Kobi, we still had to descend about five versts, across ice-covered rocks and plashy snow. The horses were exhausted; we were freezing; the snowstorm droned with ever-increasing violence, exactly like the storms of our own northern land, only its wild melodies were sadder and more melancholy. "O Exile," I thought, "thou art weeping for thy wide, free steppes! There mayest thou unfold thy cold wings, but here thou art stifled and confined, like an eagle beating his wings, with a shriek, against the grating of his iron cage!" "A bad look out," said the staff-captain. "Look! There's nothing to be seen all round but mist and snow. At any moment we may tumble into an abyss or stick fast in a cleft; and a little lower down, I dare say, the Baidara has risen so high that there is no getting across it. Oh, this Asia, I know it! Like people, like rivers! There's no trusting them at all!" The drivers, shouting and cursing, belaboured the horses, which snorted, resisted obstinately, and refused to budge on any account, notwithstanding the eloquence of the whips. "Your honour," one of the drivers said to me at length, "you see, we will never reach Kobi to-day. Won't you give orders to turn to the left while we can? There is something black yonder on the slope--probably huts. Travellers always stop there in bad weather, sir. They say," he added, pointing to the Ossetes, "that they will lead us there if you will give them a tip." "I know that, my friend, I know that without your telling me," said the staff-captain. "Oh, these beasts! They are delighted to seize any pretext for extorting a tip!" "You must confess, however," I said, "that we should be worse off without them." "Just so, just so," he growled to himself. "I know them well--these guides! They scent out by instinct a chance of taking advantage of people. As if it was impossible to find the way without them!" Accordingly we turned aside to the left, and, somehow or other, after a good deal of trouble, made our way to the wretched shelter, which consisted of two huts built of stone slabs and rubble, surrounded by a wall of the same material. Our ragged hosts received us with alacrity. I learned afterwards that the Government supplies them with money and food upon condition that they put up travellers who are overtaken by storm. CHAPTER VIII "ALL is for the best," I said, sitting down close by the fire. "Now you will finish telling me your story about Bela. I am certain that what you have already told me was not the end of it." "Why are you so certain?" answered the staff-captain, winking and smiling slyly. "Because things don't happen like that. A story with such an unusual beginning must also have an unusual ending." "You have guessed, of course"... "I am very glad to hear it." "It is all very well for you to be glad, but, indeed, it makes me sad when I think of it. Bela was a splendid girl. In the end I grew accustomed to her just as if she had been my own daughter, and she loved me. I must tell you that I have no family. I have had no news of my father and mother for twelve years or so, and, in my earlier days, I never thought of providing myself with a wife--and now, you know, it wouldn't do. So I was glad to have found someone to spoil. She used to sing to us or dance the Lezginka. [17].. And what a dancer she was! I have seen our own ladies in provincial society; and on one occasion, sir, about twenty years ago, I was even in the Nobles' Club at Moscow--but was there a woman to be compared with her? Not one! Grigori Aleksandrovich dressed her up like a doll, petted and pampered her, and it was simply astonishing to see how pretty she grew while she lived with us. The sunburn disappeared from her face and hands, and a rosy colour came into her cheeks... What a merry girl she was! Always making fun of me, the little rogue!... Heaven forgive her!" "And when you told her of her father's death?" "We kept it a secret from her for a long time, until she had grown accustomed to her position; and then, when she was told, she cried for a day or two and forgot all about it. "For four months or so everything went on as well as it possibly could. Grigori Aleksandrovich, as I think I have already mentioned, was passionately fond of hunting; he was always craving to be off into the forest after boars or wild goats--but now it would be as much as he would do to go beyond the fortress rampart. All at once, however, I saw that he was beginning again to have fits of abstraction, walking about his room with his hands clasped behind his back. One day after that, without telling anyone, he set off shooting. During the whole morning he was not to be seen; then the same thing happened another time, and so on--oftener and oftener... "'This looks bad!' I said to myself. 'Something must have come between them!' "One morning I paid them a visit--I can see it all in my mind's eye, as if it was happening now. Bela was sitting on the bed, wearing a black silk jacket, and looking rather pale and so sad that I was alarmed. "'Where is Pechorin?' I asked. "'Hunting.' "'When did he go--to-day?' "'She was silent, as if she found a difficulty in answering. "'No, he has been gone since yesterday,' she said at length, with a heavy sigh. "'Surely nothing has happened to him!' "'Yesterday I thought and thought the whole day,' she answered through her tears; 'I imagined all sorts of misfortunes. At one time I fancied that he had been wounded by a wild boar, at another time, that he had been carried off by a Chechene into the mountains... But, now, I have come to think that he no longer loves me.' "'In truth, my dear girl, you could not have imagined anything worse!' "She burst out crying; then, proudly raising her head, she wiped away the tears and continued: "'If he does not love me, then who prevents him sending me home? I am not putting any constraint on him. But, if things go on like this, I will go away myself--I am not a slave, I am a prince's daughter!'... "I tried to talk her over. "'Listen, Bela. You see it is impossible for him to stop in here with you for ever, as if he was sewn on to your petticoat. He is a young man and fond of hunting. Off he'll go, but you will find that he will come back; and, if you are going to be unhappy, you will soon make him tired of you.' "'True, true!' she said. 'I will be merry.' "And with a burst of laughter, she seized her tambourine, began to sing, dance, and gambol around me. But that did not last long either; she fell upon the bed again and buried her face in her hands. "What could I do with her? You know I have never been accustomed to the society of women. I thought and thought how to cheer her up, but couldn't hit on anything. For some time both of us remained silent... A most unpleasant situation, sir! "At length I said to her: "'Would you like us to go and take a walk on the rampart? The weather is splendid.' "This was in September, and indeed it was a wonderful day, bright and not too hot. The mountains could be seen as clearly as though they were but a hand's-breadth away. We went, and walked in silence to and fro along the rampart of the fortress. At length she sat down on the sward, and I sat beside her. In truth, now, it is funny to think of it all! I used to run after her just like a kind of children's nurse! "Our fortress was situated in a lofty position, and the view from the rampart was superb. On one side, the wide clearing, seamed by a few clefts, was bounded by the forest which stretched out to the very ridge of the mountains. Here and there, on the clearing, villages were to be seen sending forth their smoke, and there were droves of horses roaming about. On the other side flowed a tiny stream, and close to its banks came the dense undergrowth which covered the flinty heights joining the principal chain of the Caucasus. We sat in a corner of the bastion, so that we could see everything on both sides. Suddenly I perceived someone on a grey horse riding out of the forest; nearer and nearer he approached until finally he stopped on the far side of the river, about a hundred fathoms from us, and began to wheel his horse round and round like one possessed. 'Strange!' I thought. "'Look, look, Bela,' I said, 'you've got young eyes--what sort of a horseman is that? Who is it he has come to amuse?'... "'It is Kazbich!' she exclaimed after a glance. "'Ah, the robber! Come to laugh at us, has he?' "I looked closely, and sure enough it was Kazbich, with his swarthy face, and as ragged and dirty as ever. "'It is my father's horse!' said Bela, seizing my arm. "She was trembling like a leaf and her eyes were sparkling. "'Aha!' I said to myself. 'There is robber's blood in your veins still, my dear!' "'Come here,' I said to the sentry. 'Look to your gun and unhorse that gallant for me--and you shall have a silver ruble.' "'Very well, your honour, only he won't keep still.' "'Tell him to!' I said, with a laugh. "'Hey, friend!' cried the sentry, waving his hand. 'Wait a bit. What are you spinning round like a humming-top for?' "Kazbich halted and gave ear to the sentry--probably thinking that we were going to parley with him. Quite the contrary!... My grenadier took aim... Bang!... Missed!... Just as the powder flashed in the pan Kazbich jogged his horse, which gave a bound to one side. He stood up in his stirrups, shouted something in his own language, made a threatening gesture with his whip--and was off. "'Aren't you ashamed of yourself?' I said to the sentry. "'He has gone away to die, your honour,' he answered. 'There's no killing a man of that cursed race at one stroke.' "A quarter of an hour later Pechorin returned from hunting. Bela threw herself on his neck without a single complaint, without a single reproach for his lengthy absence!... Even I was angry with him by this time! "'Good heavens!' I said; 'why, I tell you, Kazbich was here on the other side of the river just a moment ago, and we shot at him. How easily you might have run up against him, you know! These mountaineers are a vindictive race! Do you suppose he does not guess that you gave Azamat some help? And I wager that he recognised Bela to-day! I know he was desperately fond of her a year ago--he told me so himself--and, if he had had any hope of getting together a proper bridegroom's gift, he would certainly have sought her in marriage.' "At this Pechorin became thoughtful. "'Yes,' he answered. 'We must be more cautious--Bela, from this day forth you mustn't walk on the rampart any more.' "In the evening I had a lengthy explanation with him. I was vexed that his feelings towards the poor girl had changed; to say nothing of his spending half the day hunting, his manner towards her had become cold. He rarely caressed her, and she was beginning perceptibly to pine away; her little face was becoming drawn, her large eyes growing dim. "'What are you sighing for, Bela?' I would ask her. 'Are you sad?' "'No!' "'Do you want anything?' "'No!' "'You are pining for your kinsfolk?' "'I have none!' "Sometimes for whole days not a word could be drawn from her but 'Yes' and 'No.' "So I straightway proceeded to talk to Pechorin about her." CHAPTER IX "'LISTEN, Maksim Maksimych,' said Pechorin. 'Mine is an unfortunate disposition; whether it is the result of my upbringing or whether it is innate--I know not. I only know this, that if I am the cause of unhappiness in others I myself am no less unhappy. Of course, that is a poor consolation to them--only the fact remains that such is the case. In my early youth, from the moment I ceased to be under the guardianship of my relations, I began madly to enjoy all the pleasures which money could buy--and, of course, such pleasures became irksome to me. Then I launched out into the world of fashion--and that, too, soon palled upon me. I fell in love with fashionable beauties and was loved by them, but my imagination and egoism alone were aroused; my heart remained empty... I began to read, to study--but sciences also became utterly wearisome to me. I saw that neither fame nor happiness depends on them in the least, because the happiest people are the uneducated, and fame is good fortune, to attain which you have only to be smart. Then I grew bored... Soon afterwards I was transferred to the Caucasus; and that was the happiest time of my life. I hoped that under the bullets of the Chechenes boredom could not exist--a vain hope! In a month I grew so accustomed to the buzzing of the bullets and to the proximity of death that, to tell the truth, I paid more attention to the gnats--and I became more bored than ever, because I had lost what was almost my last hope. When I saw Bela in my own house; when, for the first time, I held her on my knee and kissed her black locks, I, fool that I was, thought that she was an angel sent to me by sympathetic fate... Again I was mistaken; the love of a savage is little better than that of your lady of quality, the barbaric ignorance and simplicity of the one weary you as much as the coquetry of the other. I am not saying that I do not love her still; I am grateful to her for a few fairly sweet moments; I would give my life for her--only I am bored with her... Whether I am a fool or a villain I know not; but this is certain, I am also most deserving of pity--perhaps more than she. My soul has been spoiled by the world, my imagination is unquiet, my heart insatiate. To me everything is of little moment. I become as easily accustomed to grief as to joy, and my life grows emptier day by day. One expedient only is left to me--travel. "'As soon as I can, I shall set off--but not to Europe. Heaven forfend! I shall go to America, to Arabia, to India--perchance I shall die somewhere on the way. At any rate, I am convinced that, thanks to storms and bad roads, that last consolation will not quickly be exhausted!' "For a long time he went on speaking thus, and his words have remained stamped upon my memory, because it was the first time that I had heard such things from a man of five-and-twenty--and Heaven grant it may be the last. Isn't it astonishing? Tell me, please," continued the staff-captain, appealing to me. "You used to live in the Capital, I think, and that not so very long ago. Is it possible that the young men there are all like that?" I replied that there were a good many people who used the same sort of language, that, probably, there might even be some who spoke in all sincerity; that disillusionment, moreover, like all other vogues, having had its beginning in the higher strata of society, had descended to the lower, where it was being worn threadbare, and that, now, those who were really and truly bored strove to conceal their misfortune as if it were a vice. The staff-captain did not understand these subtleties, shook his head, and smiled slyly. "Anyhow, I suppose it was the French who introduced the fashion?" "No, the English." "Aha, there you are!" he answered. "They always have been arrant drunkards, you know!" Involuntarily I recalled to mind a certain lady, living in Moscow, who used to maintain that Byron was nothing more nor less than a drunkard. However, the staff-captain's observation was more excusable; in order to abstain from strong drink, he naturally endeavoured to convince himself that all the misfortunes in the world are the result of drunkenness. CHAPTER X MEANWHILE the staff-captain continued his story. "Kazbich never put in an appearance again; but somehow--I don't know why--I could not get the idea out of my head that he had had a reason for coming, and that some mischievous scheme was in his mind. "Well, one day Pechorin tried to persuade me to go boar-hunting with him. For a long time I refused. What novelty was a wild boar to me? "However, off he dragged me, all the same. We took four or five soldiers and set out early in the morning. Up till ten o'clock we scurried about the reeds and the forest--there wasn't a wild beast to be found! "'I say, oughtn't we to be going back?' I said. 'What's the use of sticking at it? It is evident enough that we have happened on an unlucky day!' "But, in spite of heat and fatigue, Pechorin didn't like to return empty-handed... That is just the kind of man he was; whatever he set his heart on he had to have--evidently, in his childhood, he had been spoiled by an indulgent mother. At last, at midday, we discovered one of those cursed wild boars--Bang! Bang!--No good!--Off it went into the reeds. That was an unlucky day, to be sure!... So, after a short rest, we set off homeward... "We rode in silence, side by side, giving the horses their head. We had almost reached the fortress, and only the brushwood concealed it from view. Suddenly a shot rang out... We glanced at each other, both struck with the selfsame suspicion... We galloped headlong in the direction of the shot, looked, and saw the soldiers clustered together on the rampart and pointing towards a field, along which a rider was flying at full speed, holding something white across his saddle. Grigori Aleksandrovich yelled like any Chechene, whipped his gun from its cover, and gave chase--I after him. "Luckily, thanks to our unsuccessful hunt, our horses were not jaded; they strained under the saddle, and with every moment we drew nearer and nearer... At length I recognised Kazbich, only I could not make out what it was that he was holding in front of him. "Then I drew level with Pechorin and shouted to him: "'It is Kazbich!' "He looked at me, nodded, and struck his horse with his whip. "At last we were within gunshot of Kazbich. Whether it was that his horse was jaded or not so good as ours, I don't know, but, in spite of all his efforts, it did not get along very fast. I fancy at that moment he remembered his Karagyoz! "I looked at Pechorin. He was taking aim as he galloped... "'Don't shoot,' I cried. 'Save the shot! We will catch up with him as it is.' "Oh, these young men! Always taking fire at the wrong moment! The shot rang out and the bullet broke one of the horse's hind legs. It gave a few fiery leaps forward, stumbled, and fell to its knees. Kazbich sprang off, and then we perceived that it was a woman he was holding in his arms--a woman wrapped in a veil. It was Bela--poor Bela! He shouted something to us in his own language and raised his dagger over her... Delay was useless; I fired in my turn, at haphazard. Probably the bullet struck him in the shoulder, because he dropped his hand suddenly. When the smoke cleared off, we could see the wounded horse lying on the ground and Bela beside it; but Kazbich, his gun flung away, was clambering like a cat up the cliff, through the brushwood. I should have liked to have brought him down from there--but I hadn't a charge ready. We jumped off our horses and rushed to Bela. Poor girl! She was lying motionless, and the blood was pouring in streams from her wound. The villain! If he had struck her to the heart--well and good, everything would at least have been finished there and then; but to stab her in the back like that--the scoundrel! She was unconscious. We tore the veil into strips and bound up the wound as tightly as we could. In vain Pechorin kissed her cold lips--it was impossible to bring her to. "Pechorin mounted; I lifted Bela from the ground and somehow managed to place her before him on his saddle; he put his arm round her and we rode back. "'Look here, Maksim Maksimych,' said Grigori Aleksandrovich, after a few moments of silence. 'We will never bring her in alive like this.' "'True!' I said, and we put our horses to a full gallop." CHAPTER XI "A CROWD was awaiting us at the fortress gate. Carefully we carried the wounded girl to Pechorin's quarters, and then we sent for the doctor. The latter was drunk, but he came, examined the wound, and announced that she could not live more than a day. He was mistaken, though." "She recovered?" I asked the staff-captain, seizing him by the arm, and involuntarily rejoicing. "No," he replied, "but the doctor was so far mistaken that she lived two days longer." "Explain, though, how Kazbich made off with her!" "It was like this: in spite of Pechorin's prohibition, she went out of the fortress and down to the river. It was a very hot day, you know, and she sat on a rock and dipped her feet in the water. Up crept Kazbich, pounced upon her, silenced her, and dragged her into the bushes. Then he sprang on his horse and made off. In the meantime she succeeded in crying out, the sentries took the alarm, fired, but wide of the mark; and thereupon we arrived on the scene." "But what did Kazbich want to carry her off for?" "Good gracious! Why, everyone knows these Circassians are a race of thieves; they can't keep their hands off anything that is left lying about! They may not want a thing, but they will steal it, for all that. Still, you mustn't be too hard on them. And, besides, he had been in love with her for a long time." "And Bela died?" "Yes, she died, but she suffered for a long time, and we were fairly knocked up with her, I can tell you. About ten o'clock in the evening she came to herself. We were sitting by her bed. As soon as ever she opened her eyes she began to call Pechorin. "'I am here beside you, my janechka' (that is, 'my darling'), he answered, taking her by the hand. "'I shall die,' she said. "We began to comfort her, telling her that the doctor had promised infallibly to cure her. She shook her little head and turned to the wall--she did not want to die!... "At night she became delirious, her head burned, at times a feverish paroxysm convulsed her whole body. She talked incoherently about her father, her brother; she yearned for the mountains, for her home... Then she spoke of Pechorin also, called him various fond names, or reproached him for having ceased to love his janechka. "He listened to her in silence, his head sunk in his hands; but yet, during the whole time, I did not notice a single tear-drop on his lashes. I do not know whether he was actually unable to weep or was mastering himself; but for my part I have never seen anything more pitiful. "Towards morning the delirium passed off. For an hour or so she lay motionless, pale, and so weak that it was hardly possible to observe that she was breathing. After that she grew better and began to talk: only about what, think you? Such thoughts come only to the dying!... She lamented that she was not a Christian, that in the other world her soul would never meet the soul of Grigori Aleksandrovich, and that in Paradise another woman would be his companion. The thought occurred to me to baptize her before her death. I told her my idea; she looked at me undecidedly, and for a long time was unable to utter a word. Finally she answered that she would die in the faith in which she had been born. A whole day passed thus. What a change that day made in her! Her pale cheeks fell in, her eyes grew ever so large, her lips burned. She felt a consuming heat within her, as though a red-hot blade was piercing her breast. "The second night came on. We did not close our eyes or leave the bedside. She suffered terribly, and groaned; and directly the pain began to abate she endeavoured to assure Grigori Aleksandrovich that she felt better, tried to persuade him to go to bed, kissed his hand and would not let it out of hers. Before the morning she began to feel the death agony and to toss about. She knocked the bandage off, and the blood flowed afresh. When the wound was bound up again she grew quiet for a moment and begged Pechorin to kiss her. He fell on his knees beside the bed, raised her head from the pillow, and pressed his lips to hers--which were growing cold. She threw her trembling arms closely round his neck, as if with that kiss she wished to yield up her soul to him.--No, she did well to die! Why, what would have become of her if Grigori Aleksandrovich had abandoned her? And that is what would have happened, sooner or later. "During half the following day she was calm, silent and docile, however much the doctor tortured her with his fomentations and mixtures. "'Good heavens!' I said to him, 'you know you said yourself that she was certain to die, so what is the good of all these preparations of yours?' "'Even so, it is better to do all this,' he replied, 'so that I may have an easy conscience.' "A pretty conscience, forsooth! "After midday Bela began to suffer from thirst. We opened the windows, but it was hotter outside than in the room; we placed ice round the bed--all to no purpose. I knew that that intolerable thirst was a sign of the approaching end, and I told Pechorin so. "'Water, water!' she said in a hoarse voice, raising herself up from the bed. "Pechorin turned pale as a sheet, seized a glass, filled it, and gave it to her. I covered my eyes with my hands and began to say a prayer--I can't remember what... Yes, my friend, many a time have I seen people die in hospitals or on the field of battle, but this was something altogether different! Still, this one thing grieves me, I must confess: she died without even once calling me to mind. Yet I loved her, I should think, like a father!... Well, God forgive her!... And, to tell the truth, what am I that she should have remembered me when she was dying?... "As soon as she had drunk the water, she grew easier--but in about three minutes she breathed her last! We put a looking-glass to her lips--it was undimmed! "I led Pechorin from the room, and we went on to the fortress rampart. For a long time we walked side by side, to and fro, speaking not a word and with our hands clasped behind our backs. His face expressed nothing out of the common--and that vexed me. Had I been in his place, I should have died of grief. At length he sat down on the ground in the shade and began to draw something in the sand with his stick. More for form's sake than anything, you know, I tried to console him and began to talk. He raised his head and burst into a laugh! At that laugh a cold shudder ran through me... I went away to order a coffin. "I confess it was partly to distract my thoughts that I busied myself in that way. I possessed a little piece of Circassian stuff, and I | exist | How many times the word 'exist' appears in the text? | 1 |
versts in two hours! Meanwhile the clouds had descended, hail and snow fell; the wind, bursting into the ravines, howled and whistled like Nightingale the Robber. [16] Soon the stone cross was hidden in the mist, the billows of which, in ever denser and more compact masses, rushed in from the east... Concerning that stone cross, by the way, there exists the strange, but widespread, tradition that it had been set up by the Emperor Peter the First when travelling through the Caucasus. In the first place, however, the Emperor went no farther than Daghestan; and, in the second place, there is an inscription in large letters on the cross itself, to the effect that it had been erected by order of General Ermolov, and that too in the year 1824. Nevertheless, the tradition has taken such firm root, in spite of the inscription, that really you do not know what to believe; the more so, as it is not the custom to believe inscriptions. To reach the station Kobi, we still had to descend about five versts, across ice-covered rocks and plashy snow. The horses were exhausted; we were freezing; the snowstorm droned with ever-increasing violence, exactly like the storms of our own northern land, only its wild melodies were sadder and more melancholy. "O Exile," I thought, "thou art weeping for thy wide, free steppes! There mayest thou unfold thy cold wings, but here thou art stifled and confined, like an eagle beating his wings, with a shriek, against the grating of his iron cage!" "A bad look out," said the staff-captain. "Look! There's nothing to be seen all round but mist and snow. At any moment we may tumble into an abyss or stick fast in a cleft; and a little lower down, I dare say, the Baidara has risen so high that there is no getting across it. Oh, this Asia, I know it! Like people, like rivers! There's no trusting them at all!" The drivers, shouting and cursing, belaboured the horses, which snorted, resisted obstinately, and refused to budge on any account, notwithstanding the eloquence of the whips. "Your honour," one of the drivers said to me at length, "you see, we will never reach Kobi to-day. Won't you give orders to turn to the left while we can? There is something black yonder on the slope--probably huts. Travellers always stop there in bad weather, sir. They say," he added, pointing to the Ossetes, "that they will lead us there if you will give them a tip." "I know that, my friend, I know that without your telling me," said the staff-captain. "Oh, these beasts! They are delighted to seize any pretext for extorting a tip!" "You must confess, however," I said, "that we should be worse off without them." "Just so, just so," he growled to himself. "I know them well--these guides! They scent out by instinct a chance of taking advantage of people. As if it was impossible to find the way without them!" Accordingly we turned aside to the left, and, somehow or other, after a good deal of trouble, made our way to the wretched shelter, which consisted of two huts built of stone slabs and rubble, surrounded by a wall of the same material. Our ragged hosts received us with alacrity. I learned afterwards that the Government supplies them with money and food upon condition that they put up travellers who are overtaken by storm. CHAPTER VIII "ALL is for the best," I said, sitting down close by the fire. "Now you will finish telling me your story about Bela. I am certain that what you have already told me was not the end of it." "Why are you so certain?" answered the staff-captain, winking and smiling slyly. "Because things don't happen like that. A story with such an unusual beginning must also have an unusual ending." "You have guessed, of course"... "I am very glad to hear it." "It is all very well for you to be glad, but, indeed, it makes me sad when I think of it. Bela was a splendid girl. In the end I grew accustomed to her just as if she had been my own daughter, and she loved me. I must tell you that I have no family. I have had no news of my father and mother for twelve years or so, and, in my earlier days, I never thought of providing myself with a wife--and now, you know, it wouldn't do. So I was glad to have found someone to spoil. She used to sing to us or dance the Lezginka. [17].. And what a dancer she was! I have seen our own ladies in provincial society; and on one occasion, sir, about twenty years ago, I was even in the Nobles' Club at Moscow--but was there a woman to be compared with her? Not one! Grigori Aleksandrovich dressed her up like a doll, petted and pampered her, and it was simply astonishing to see how pretty she grew while she lived with us. The sunburn disappeared from her face and hands, and a rosy colour came into her cheeks... What a merry girl she was! Always making fun of me, the little rogue!... Heaven forgive her!" "And when you told her of her father's death?" "We kept it a secret from her for a long time, until she had grown accustomed to her position; and then, when she was told, she cried for a day or two and forgot all about it. "For four months or so everything went on as well as it possibly could. Grigori Aleksandrovich, as I think I have already mentioned, was passionately fond of hunting; he was always craving to be off into the forest after boars or wild goats--but now it would be as much as he would do to go beyond the fortress rampart. All at once, however, I saw that he was beginning again to have fits of abstraction, walking about his room with his hands clasped behind his back. One day after that, without telling anyone, he set off shooting. During the whole morning he was not to be seen; then the same thing happened another time, and so on--oftener and oftener... "'This looks bad!' I said to myself. 'Something must have come between them!' "One morning I paid them a visit--I can see it all in my mind's eye, as if it was happening now. Bela was sitting on the bed, wearing a black silk jacket, and looking rather pale and so sad that I was alarmed. "'Where is Pechorin?' I asked. "'Hunting.' "'When did he go--to-day?' "'She was silent, as if she found a difficulty in answering. "'No, he has been gone since yesterday,' she said at length, with a heavy sigh. "'Surely nothing has happened to him!' "'Yesterday I thought and thought the whole day,' she answered through her tears; 'I imagined all sorts of misfortunes. At one time I fancied that he had been wounded by a wild boar, at another time, that he had been carried off by a Chechene into the mountains... But, now, I have come to think that he no longer loves me.' "'In truth, my dear girl, you could not have imagined anything worse!' "She burst out crying; then, proudly raising her head, she wiped away the tears and continued: "'If he does not love me, then who prevents him sending me home? I am not putting any constraint on him. But, if things go on like this, I will go away myself--I am not a slave, I am a prince's daughter!'... "I tried to talk her over. "'Listen, Bela. You see it is impossible for him to stop in here with you for ever, as if he was sewn on to your petticoat. He is a young man and fond of hunting. Off he'll go, but you will find that he will come back; and, if you are going to be unhappy, you will soon make him tired of you.' "'True, true!' she said. 'I will be merry.' "And with a burst of laughter, she seized her tambourine, began to sing, dance, and gambol around me. But that did not last long either; she fell upon the bed again and buried her face in her hands. "What could I do with her? You know I have never been accustomed to the society of women. I thought and thought how to cheer her up, but couldn't hit on anything. For some time both of us remained silent... A most unpleasant situation, sir! "At length I said to her: "'Would you like us to go and take a walk on the rampart? The weather is splendid.' "This was in September, and indeed it was a wonderful day, bright and not too hot. The mountains could be seen as clearly as though they were but a hand's-breadth away. We went, and walked in silence to and fro along the rampart of the fortress. At length she sat down on the sward, and I sat beside her. In truth, now, it is funny to think of it all! I used to run after her just like a kind of children's nurse! "Our fortress was situated in a lofty position, and the view from the rampart was superb. On one side, the wide clearing, seamed by a few clefts, was bounded by the forest which stretched out to the very ridge of the mountains. Here and there, on the clearing, villages were to be seen sending forth their smoke, and there were droves of horses roaming about. On the other side flowed a tiny stream, and close to its banks came the dense undergrowth which covered the flinty heights joining the principal chain of the Caucasus. We sat in a corner of the bastion, so that we could see everything on both sides. Suddenly I perceived someone on a grey horse riding out of the forest; nearer and nearer he approached until finally he stopped on the far side of the river, about a hundred fathoms from us, and began to wheel his horse round and round like one possessed. 'Strange!' I thought. "'Look, look, Bela,' I said, 'you've got young eyes--what sort of a horseman is that? Who is it he has come to amuse?'... "'It is Kazbich!' she exclaimed after a glance. "'Ah, the robber! Come to laugh at us, has he?' "I looked closely, and sure enough it was Kazbich, with his swarthy face, and as ragged and dirty as ever. "'It is my father's horse!' said Bela, seizing my arm. "She was trembling like a leaf and her eyes were sparkling. "'Aha!' I said to myself. 'There is robber's blood in your veins still, my dear!' "'Come here,' I said to the sentry. 'Look to your gun and unhorse that gallant for me--and you shall have a silver ruble.' "'Very well, your honour, only he won't keep still.' "'Tell him to!' I said, with a laugh. "'Hey, friend!' cried the sentry, waving his hand. 'Wait a bit. What are you spinning round like a humming-top for?' "Kazbich halted and gave ear to the sentry--probably thinking that we were going to parley with him. Quite the contrary!... My grenadier took aim... Bang!... Missed!... Just as the powder flashed in the pan Kazbich jogged his horse, which gave a bound to one side. He stood up in his stirrups, shouted something in his own language, made a threatening gesture with his whip--and was off. "'Aren't you ashamed of yourself?' I said to the sentry. "'He has gone away to die, your honour,' he answered. 'There's no killing a man of that cursed race at one stroke.' "A quarter of an hour later Pechorin returned from hunting. Bela threw herself on his neck without a single complaint, without a single reproach for his lengthy absence!... Even I was angry with him by this time! "'Good heavens!' I said; 'why, I tell you, Kazbich was here on the other side of the river just a moment ago, and we shot at him. How easily you might have run up against him, you know! These mountaineers are a vindictive race! Do you suppose he does not guess that you gave Azamat some help? And I wager that he recognised Bela to-day! I know he was desperately fond of her a year ago--he told me so himself--and, if he had had any hope of getting together a proper bridegroom's gift, he would certainly have sought her in marriage.' "At this Pechorin became thoughtful. "'Yes,' he answered. 'We must be more cautious--Bela, from this day forth you mustn't walk on the rampart any more.' "In the evening I had a lengthy explanation with him. I was vexed that his feelings towards the poor girl had changed; to say nothing of his spending half the day hunting, his manner towards her had become cold. He rarely caressed her, and she was beginning perceptibly to pine away; her little face was becoming drawn, her large eyes growing dim. "'What are you sighing for, Bela?' I would ask her. 'Are you sad?' "'No!' "'Do you want anything?' "'No!' "'You are pining for your kinsfolk?' "'I have none!' "Sometimes for whole days not a word could be drawn from her but 'Yes' and 'No.' "So I straightway proceeded to talk to Pechorin about her." CHAPTER IX "'LISTEN, Maksim Maksimych,' said Pechorin. 'Mine is an unfortunate disposition; whether it is the result of my upbringing or whether it is innate--I know not. I only know this, that if I am the cause of unhappiness in others I myself am no less unhappy. Of course, that is a poor consolation to them--only the fact remains that such is the case. In my early youth, from the moment I ceased to be under the guardianship of my relations, I began madly to enjoy all the pleasures which money could buy--and, of course, such pleasures became irksome to me. Then I launched out into the world of fashion--and that, too, soon palled upon me. I fell in love with fashionable beauties and was loved by them, but my imagination and egoism alone were aroused; my heart remained empty... I began to read, to study--but sciences also became utterly wearisome to me. I saw that neither fame nor happiness depends on them in the least, because the happiest people are the uneducated, and fame is good fortune, to attain which you have only to be smart. Then I grew bored... Soon afterwards I was transferred to the Caucasus; and that was the happiest time of my life. I hoped that under the bullets of the Chechenes boredom could not exist--a vain hope! In a month I grew so accustomed to the buzzing of the bullets and to the proximity of death that, to tell the truth, I paid more attention to the gnats--and I became more bored than ever, because I had lost what was almost my last hope. When I saw Bela in my own house; when, for the first time, I held her on my knee and kissed her black locks, I, fool that I was, thought that she was an angel sent to me by sympathetic fate... Again I was mistaken; the love of a savage is little better than that of your lady of quality, the barbaric ignorance and simplicity of the one weary you as much as the coquetry of the other. I am not saying that I do not love her still; I am grateful to her for a few fairly sweet moments; I would give my life for her--only I am bored with her... Whether I am a fool or a villain I know not; but this is certain, I am also most deserving of pity--perhaps more than she. My soul has been spoiled by the world, my imagination is unquiet, my heart insatiate. To me everything is of little moment. I become as easily accustomed to grief as to joy, and my life grows emptier day by day. One expedient only is left to me--travel. "'As soon as I can, I shall set off--but not to Europe. Heaven forfend! I shall go to America, to Arabia, to India--perchance I shall die somewhere on the way. At any rate, I am convinced that, thanks to storms and bad roads, that last consolation will not quickly be exhausted!' "For a long time he went on speaking thus, and his words have remained stamped upon my memory, because it was the first time that I had heard such things from a man of five-and-twenty--and Heaven grant it may be the last. Isn't it astonishing? Tell me, please," continued the staff-captain, appealing to me. "You used to live in the Capital, I think, and that not so very long ago. Is it possible that the young men there are all like that?" I replied that there were a good many people who used the same sort of language, that, probably, there might even be some who spoke in all sincerity; that disillusionment, moreover, like all other vogues, having had its beginning in the higher strata of society, had descended to the lower, where it was being worn threadbare, and that, now, those who were really and truly bored strove to conceal their misfortune as if it were a vice. The staff-captain did not understand these subtleties, shook his head, and smiled slyly. "Anyhow, I suppose it was the French who introduced the fashion?" "No, the English." "Aha, there you are!" he answered. "They always have been arrant drunkards, you know!" Involuntarily I recalled to mind a certain lady, living in Moscow, who used to maintain that Byron was nothing more nor less than a drunkard. However, the staff-captain's observation was more excusable; in order to abstain from strong drink, he naturally endeavoured to convince himself that all the misfortunes in the world are the result of drunkenness. CHAPTER X MEANWHILE the staff-captain continued his story. "Kazbich never put in an appearance again; but somehow--I don't know why--I could not get the idea out of my head that he had had a reason for coming, and that some mischievous scheme was in his mind. "Well, one day Pechorin tried to persuade me to go boar-hunting with him. For a long time I refused. What novelty was a wild boar to me? "However, off he dragged me, all the same. We took four or five soldiers and set out early in the morning. Up till ten o'clock we scurried about the reeds and the forest--there wasn't a wild beast to be found! "'I say, oughtn't we to be going back?' I said. 'What's the use of sticking at it? It is evident enough that we have happened on an unlucky day!' "But, in spite of heat and fatigue, Pechorin didn't like to return empty-handed... That is just the kind of man he was; whatever he set his heart on he had to have--evidently, in his childhood, he had been spoiled by an indulgent mother. At last, at midday, we discovered one of those cursed wild boars--Bang! Bang!--No good!--Off it went into the reeds. That was an unlucky day, to be sure!... So, after a short rest, we set off homeward... "We rode in silence, side by side, giving the horses their head. We had almost reached the fortress, and only the brushwood concealed it from view. Suddenly a shot rang out... We glanced at each other, both struck with the selfsame suspicion... We galloped headlong in the direction of the shot, looked, and saw the soldiers clustered together on the rampart and pointing towards a field, along which a rider was flying at full speed, holding something white across his saddle. Grigori Aleksandrovich yelled like any Chechene, whipped his gun from its cover, and gave chase--I after him. "Luckily, thanks to our unsuccessful hunt, our horses were not jaded; they strained under the saddle, and with every moment we drew nearer and nearer... At length I recognised Kazbich, only I could not make out what it was that he was holding in front of him. "Then I drew level with Pechorin and shouted to him: "'It is Kazbich!' "He looked at me, nodded, and struck his horse with his whip. "At last we were within gunshot of Kazbich. Whether it was that his horse was jaded or not so good as ours, I don't know, but, in spite of all his efforts, it did not get along very fast. I fancy at that moment he remembered his Karagyoz! "I looked at Pechorin. He was taking aim as he galloped... "'Don't shoot,' I cried. 'Save the shot! We will catch up with him as it is.' "Oh, these young men! Always taking fire at the wrong moment! The shot rang out and the bullet broke one of the horse's hind legs. It gave a few fiery leaps forward, stumbled, and fell to its knees. Kazbich sprang off, and then we perceived that it was a woman he was holding in his arms--a woman wrapped in a veil. It was Bela--poor Bela! He shouted something to us in his own language and raised his dagger over her... Delay was useless; I fired in my turn, at haphazard. Probably the bullet struck him in the shoulder, because he dropped his hand suddenly. When the smoke cleared off, we could see the wounded horse lying on the ground and Bela beside it; but Kazbich, his gun flung away, was clambering like a cat up the cliff, through the brushwood. I should have liked to have brought him down from there--but I hadn't a charge ready. We jumped off our horses and rushed to Bela. Poor girl! She was lying motionless, and the blood was pouring in streams from her wound. The villain! If he had struck her to the heart--well and good, everything would at least have been finished there and then; but to stab her in the back like that--the scoundrel! She was unconscious. We tore the veil into strips and bound up the wound as tightly as we could. In vain Pechorin kissed her cold lips--it was impossible to bring her to. "Pechorin mounted; I lifted Bela from the ground and somehow managed to place her before him on his saddle; he put his arm round her and we rode back. "'Look here, Maksim Maksimych,' said Grigori Aleksandrovich, after a few moments of silence. 'We will never bring her in alive like this.' "'True!' I said, and we put our horses to a full gallop." CHAPTER XI "A CROWD was awaiting us at the fortress gate. Carefully we carried the wounded girl to Pechorin's quarters, and then we sent for the doctor. The latter was drunk, but he came, examined the wound, and announced that she could not live more than a day. He was mistaken, though." "She recovered?" I asked the staff-captain, seizing him by the arm, and involuntarily rejoicing. "No," he replied, "but the doctor was so far mistaken that she lived two days longer." "Explain, though, how Kazbich made off with her!" "It was like this: in spite of Pechorin's prohibition, she went out of the fortress and down to the river. It was a very hot day, you know, and she sat on a rock and dipped her feet in the water. Up crept Kazbich, pounced upon her, silenced her, and dragged her into the bushes. Then he sprang on his horse and made off. In the meantime she succeeded in crying out, the sentries took the alarm, fired, but wide of the mark; and thereupon we arrived on the scene." "But what did Kazbich want to carry her off for?" "Good gracious! Why, everyone knows these Circassians are a race of thieves; they can't keep their hands off anything that is left lying about! They may not want a thing, but they will steal it, for all that. Still, you mustn't be too hard on them. And, besides, he had been in love with her for a long time." "And Bela died?" "Yes, she died, but she suffered for a long time, and we were fairly knocked up with her, I can tell you. About ten o'clock in the evening she came to herself. We were sitting by her bed. As soon as ever she opened her eyes she began to call Pechorin. "'I am here beside you, my janechka' (that is, 'my darling'), he answered, taking her by the hand. "'I shall die,' she said. "We began to comfort her, telling her that the doctor had promised infallibly to cure her. She shook her little head and turned to the wall--she did not want to die!... "At night she became delirious, her head burned, at times a feverish paroxysm convulsed her whole body. She talked incoherently about her father, her brother; she yearned for the mountains, for her home... Then she spoke of Pechorin also, called him various fond names, or reproached him for having ceased to love his janechka. "He listened to her in silence, his head sunk in his hands; but yet, during the whole time, I did not notice a single tear-drop on his lashes. I do not know whether he was actually unable to weep or was mastering himself; but for my part I have never seen anything more pitiful. "Towards morning the delirium passed off. For an hour or so she lay motionless, pale, and so weak that it was hardly possible to observe that she was breathing. After that she grew better and began to talk: only about what, think you? Such thoughts come only to the dying!... She lamented that she was not a Christian, that in the other world her soul would never meet the soul of Grigori Aleksandrovich, and that in Paradise another woman would be his companion. The thought occurred to me to baptize her before her death. I told her my idea; she looked at me undecidedly, and for a long time was unable to utter a word. Finally she answered that she would die in the faith in which she had been born. A whole day passed thus. What a change that day made in her! Her pale cheeks fell in, her eyes grew ever so large, her lips burned. She felt a consuming heat within her, as though a red-hot blade was piercing her breast. "The second night came on. We did not close our eyes or leave the bedside. She suffered terribly, and groaned; and directly the pain began to abate she endeavoured to assure Grigori Aleksandrovich that she felt better, tried to persuade him to go to bed, kissed his hand and would not let it out of hers. Before the morning she began to feel the death agony and to toss about. She knocked the bandage off, and the blood flowed afresh. When the wound was bound up again she grew quiet for a moment and begged Pechorin to kiss her. He fell on his knees beside the bed, raised her head from the pillow, and pressed his lips to hers--which were growing cold. She threw her trembling arms closely round his neck, as if with that kiss she wished to yield up her soul to him.--No, she did well to die! Why, what would have become of her if Grigori Aleksandrovich had abandoned her? And that is what would have happened, sooner or later. "During half the following day she was calm, silent and docile, however much the doctor tortured her with his fomentations and mixtures. "'Good heavens!' I said to him, 'you know you said yourself that she was certain to die, so what is the good of all these preparations of yours?' "'Even so, it is better to do all this,' he replied, 'so that I may have an easy conscience.' "A pretty conscience, forsooth! "After midday Bela began to suffer from thirst. We opened the windows, but it was hotter outside than in the room; we placed ice round the bed--all to no purpose. I knew that that intolerable thirst was a sign of the approaching end, and I told Pechorin so. "'Water, water!' she said in a hoarse voice, raising herself up from the bed. "Pechorin turned pale as a sheet, seized a glass, filled it, and gave it to her. I covered my eyes with my hands and began to say a prayer--I can't remember what... Yes, my friend, many a time have I seen people die in hospitals or on the field of battle, but this was something altogether different! Still, this one thing grieves me, I must confess: she died without even once calling me to mind. Yet I loved her, I should think, like a father!... Well, God forgive her!... And, to tell the truth, what am I that she should have remembered me when she was dying?... "As soon as she had drunk the water, she grew easier--but in about three minutes she breathed her last! We put a looking-glass to her lips--it was undimmed! "I led Pechorin from the room, and we went on to the fortress rampart. For a long time we walked side by side, to and fro, speaking not a word and with our hands clasped behind our backs. His face expressed nothing out of the common--and that vexed me. Had I been in his place, I should have died of grief. At length he sat down on the ground in the shade and began to draw something in the sand with his stick. More for form's sake than anything, you know, I tried to console him and began to talk. He raised his head and burst into a laugh! At that laugh a cold shudder ran through me... I went away to order a coffin. "I confess it was partly to distract my thoughts that I busied myself in that way. I possessed a little piece of Circassian stuff, and I | travellers | How many times the word 'travellers' appears in the text? | 2 |
versts in two hours! Meanwhile the clouds had descended, hail and snow fell; the wind, bursting into the ravines, howled and whistled like Nightingale the Robber. [16] Soon the stone cross was hidden in the mist, the billows of which, in ever denser and more compact masses, rushed in from the east... Concerning that stone cross, by the way, there exists the strange, but widespread, tradition that it had been set up by the Emperor Peter the First when travelling through the Caucasus. In the first place, however, the Emperor went no farther than Daghestan; and, in the second place, there is an inscription in large letters on the cross itself, to the effect that it had been erected by order of General Ermolov, and that too in the year 1824. Nevertheless, the tradition has taken such firm root, in spite of the inscription, that really you do not know what to believe; the more so, as it is not the custom to believe inscriptions. To reach the station Kobi, we still had to descend about five versts, across ice-covered rocks and plashy snow. The horses were exhausted; we were freezing; the snowstorm droned with ever-increasing violence, exactly like the storms of our own northern land, only its wild melodies were sadder and more melancholy. "O Exile," I thought, "thou art weeping for thy wide, free steppes! There mayest thou unfold thy cold wings, but here thou art stifled and confined, like an eagle beating his wings, with a shriek, against the grating of his iron cage!" "A bad look out," said the staff-captain. "Look! There's nothing to be seen all round but mist and snow. At any moment we may tumble into an abyss or stick fast in a cleft; and a little lower down, I dare say, the Baidara has risen so high that there is no getting across it. Oh, this Asia, I know it! Like people, like rivers! There's no trusting them at all!" The drivers, shouting and cursing, belaboured the horses, which snorted, resisted obstinately, and refused to budge on any account, notwithstanding the eloquence of the whips. "Your honour," one of the drivers said to me at length, "you see, we will never reach Kobi to-day. Won't you give orders to turn to the left while we can? There is something black yonder on the slope--probably huts. Travellers always stop there in bad weather, sir. They say," he added, pointing to the Ossetes, "that they will lead us there if you will give them a tip." "I know that, my friend, I know that without your telling me," said the staff-captain. "Oh, these beasts! They are delighted to seize any pretext for extorting a tip!" "You must confess, however," I said, "that we should be worse off without them." "Just so, just so," he growled to himself. "I know them well--these guides! They scent out by instinct a chance of taking advantage of people. As if it was impossible to find the way without them!" Accordingly we turned aside to the left, and, somehow or other, after a good deal of trouble, made our way to the wretched shelter, which consisted of two huts built of stone slabs and rubble, surrounded by a wall of the same material. Our ragged hosts received us with alacrity. I learned afterwards that the Government supplies them with money and food upon condition that they put up travellers who are overtaken by storm. CHAPTER VIII "ALL is for the best," I said, sitting down close by the fire. "Now you will finish telling me your story about Bela. I am certain that what you have already told me was not the end of it." "Why are you so certain?" answered the staff-captain, winking and smiling slyly. "Because things don't happen like that. A story with such an unusual beginning must also have an unusual ending." "You have guessed, of course"... "I am very glad to hear it." "It is all very well for you to be glad, but, indeed, it makes me sad when I think of it. Bela was a splendid girl. In the end I grew accustomed to her just as if she had been my own daughter, and she loved me. I must tell you that I have no family. I have had no news of my father and mother for twelve years or so, and, in my earlier days, I never thought of providing myself with a wife--and now, you know, it wouldn't do. So I was glad to have found someone to spoil. She used to sing to us or dance the Lezginka. [17].. And what a dancer she was! I have seen our own ladies in provincial society; and on one occasion, sir, about twenty years ago, I was even in the Nobles' Club at Moscow--but was there a woman to be compared with her? Not one! Grigori Aleksandrovich dressed her up like a doll, petted and pampered her, and it was simply astonishing to see how pretty she grew while she lived with us. The sunburn disappeared from her face and hands, and a rosy colour came into her cheeks... What a merry girl she was! Always making fun of me, the little rogue!... Heaven forgive her!" "And when you told her of her father's death?" "We kept it a secret from her for a long time, until she had grown accustomed to her position; and then, when she was told, she cried for a day or two and forgot all about it. "For four months or so everything went on as well as it possibly could. Grigori Aleksandrovich, as I think I have already mentioned, was passionately fond of hunting; he was always craving to be off into the forest after boars or wild goats--but now it would be as much as he would do to go beyond the fortress rampart. All at once, however, I saw that he was beginning again to have fits of abstraction, walking about his room with his hands clasped behind his back. One day after that, without telling anyone, he set off shooting. During the whole morning he was not to be seen; then the same thing happened another time, and so on--oftener and oftener... "'This looks bad!' I said to myself. 'Something must have come between them!' "One morning I paid them a visit--I can see it all in my mind's eye, as if it was happening now. Bela was sitting on the bed, wearing a black silk jacket, and looking rather pale and so sad that I was alarmed. "'Where is Pechorin?' I asked. "'Hunting.' "'When did he go--to-day?' "'She was silent, as if she found a difficulty in answering. "'No, he has been gone since yesterday,' she said at length, with a heavy sigh. "'Surely nothing has happened to him!' "'Yesterday I thought and thought the whole day,' she answered through her tears; 'I imagined all sorts of misfortunes. At one time I fancied that he had been wounded by a wild boar, at another time, that he had been carried off by a Chechene into the mountains... But, now, I have come to think that he no longer loves me.' "'In truth, my dear girl, you could not have imagined anything worse!' "She burst out crying; then, proudly raising her head, she wiped away the tears and continued: "'If he does not love me, then who prevents him sending me home? I am not putting any constraint on him. But, if things go on like this, I will go away myself--I am not a slave, I am a prince's daughter!'... "I tried to talk her over. "'Listen, Bela. You see it is impossible for him to stop in here with you for ever, as if he was sewn on to your petticoat. He is a young man and fond of hunting. Off he'll go, but you will find that he will come back; and, if you are going to be unhappy, you will soon make him tired of you.' "'True, true!' she said. 'I will be merry.' "And with a burst of laughter, she seized her tambourine, began to sing, dance, and gambol around me. But that did not last long either; she fell upon the bed again and buried her face in her hands. "What could I do with her? You know I have never been accustomed to the society of women. I thought and thought how to cheer her up, but couldn't hit on anything. For some time both of us remained silent... A most unpleasant situation, sir! "At length I said to her: "'Would you like us to go and take a walk on the rampart? The weather is splendid.' "This was in September, and indeed it was a wonderful day, bright and not too hot. The mountains could be seen as clearly as though they were but a hand's-breadth away. We went, and walked in silence to and fro along the rampart of the fortress. At length she sat down on the sward, and I sat beside her. In truth, now, it is funny to think of it all! I used to run after her just like a kind of children's nurse! "Our fortress was situated in a lofty position, and the view from the rampart was superb. On one side, the wide clearing, seamed by a few clefts, was bounded by the forest which stretched out to the very ridge of the mountains. Here and there, on the clearing, villages were to be seen sending forth their smoke, and there were droves of horses roaming about. On the other side flowed a tiny stream, and close to its banks came the dense undergrowth which covered the flinty heights joining the principal chain of the Caucasus. We sat in a corner of the bastion, so that we could see everything on both sides. Suddenly I perceived someone on a grey horse riding out of the forest; nearer and nearer he approached until finally he stopped on the far side of the river, about a hundred fathoms from us, and began to wheel his horse round and round like one possessed. 'Strange!' I thought. "'Look, look, Bela,' I said, 'you've got young eyes--what sort of a horseman is that? Who is it he has come to amuse?'... "'It is Kazbich!' she exclaimed after a glance. "'Ah, the robber! Come to laugh at us, has he?' "I looked closely, and sure enough it was Kazbich, with his swarthy face, and as ragged and dirty as ever. "'It is my father's horse!' said Bela, seizing my arm. "She was trembling like a leaf and her eyes were sparkling. "'Aha!' I said to myself. 'There is robber's blood in your veins still, my dear!' "'Come here,' I said to the sentry. 'Look to your gun and unhorse that gallant for me--and you shall have a silver ruble.' "'Very well, your honour, only he won't keep still.' "'Tell him to!' I said, with a laugh. "'Hey, friend!' cried the sentry, waving his hand. 'Wait a bit. What are you spinning round like a humming-top for?' "Kazbich halted and gave ear to the sentry--probably thinking that we were going to parley with him. Quite the contrary!... My grenadier took aim... Bang!... Missed!... Just as the powder flashed in the pan Kazbich jogged his horse, which gave a bound to one side. He stood up in his stirrups, shouted something in his own language, made a threatening gesture with his whip--and was off. "'Aren't you ashamed of yourself?' I said to the sentry. "'He has gone away to die, your honour,' he answered. 'There's no killing a man of that cursed race at one stroke.' "A quarter of an hour later Pechorin returned from hunting. Bela threw herself on his neck without a single complaint, without a single reproach for his lengthy absence!... Even I was angry with him by this time! "'Good heavens!' I said; 'why, I tell you, Kazbich was here on the other side of the river just a moment ago, and we shot at him. How easily you might have run up against him, you know! These mountaineers are a vindictive race! Do you suppose he does not guess that you gave Azamat some help? And I wager that he recognised Bela to-day! I know he was desperately fond of her a year ago--he told me so himself--and, if he had had any hope of getting together a proper bridegroom's gift, he would certainly have sought her in marriage.' "At this Pechorin became thoughtful. "'Yes,' he answered. 'We must be more cautious--Bela, from this day forth you mustn't walk on the rampart any more.' "In the evening I had a lengthy explanation with him. I was vexed that his feelings towards the poor girl had changed; to say nothing of his spending half the day hunting, his manner towards her had become cold. He rarely caressed her, and she was beginning perceptibly to pine away; her little face was becoming drawn, her large eyes growing dim. "'What are you sighing for, Bela?' I would ask her. 'Are you sad?' "'No!' "'Do you want anything?' "'No!' "'You are pining for your kinsfolk?' "'I have none!' "Sometimes for whole days not a word could be drawn from her but 'Yes' and 'No.' "So I straightway proceeded to talk to Pechorin about her." CHAPTER IX "'LISTEN, Maksim Maksimych,' said Pechorin. 'Mine is an unfortunate disposition; whether it is the result of my upbringing or whether it is innate--I know not. I only know this, that if I am the cause of unhappiness in others I myself am no less unhappy. Of course, that is a poor consolation to them--only the fact remains that such is the case. In my early youth, from the moment I ceased to be under the guardianship of my relations, I began madly to enjoy all the pleasures which money could buy--and, of course, such pleasures became irksome to me. Then I launched out into the world of fashion--and that, too, soon palled upon me. I fell in love with fashionable beauties and was loved by them, but my imagination and egoism alone were aroused; my heart remained empty... I began to read, to study--but sciences also became utterly wearisome to me. I saw that neither fame nor happiness depends on them in the least, because the happiest people are the uneducated, and fame is good fortune, to attain which you have only to be smart. Then I grew bored... Soon afterwards I was transferred to the Caucasus; and that was the happiest time of my life. I hoped that under the bullets of the Chechenes boredom could not exist--a vain hope! In a month I grew so accustomed to the buzzing of the bullets and to the proximity of death that, to tell the truth, I paid more attention to the gnats--and I became more bored than ever, because I had lost what was almost my last hope. When I saw Bela in my own house; when, for the first time, I held her on my knee and kissed her black locks, I, fool that I was, thought that she was an angel sent to me by sympathetic fate... Again I was mistaken; the love of a savage is little better than that of your lady of quality, the barbaric ignorance and simplicity of the one weary you as much as the coquetry of the other. I am not saying that I do not love her still; I am grateful to her for a few fairly sweet moments; I would give my life for her--only I am bored with her... Whether I am a fool or a villain I know not; but this is certain, I am also most deserving of pity--perhaps more than she. My soul has been spoiled by the world, my imagination is unquiet, my heart insatiate. To me everything is of little moment. I become as easily accustomed to grief as to joy, and my life grows emptier day by day. One expedient only is left to me--travel. "'As soon as I can, I shall set off--but not to Europe. Heaven forfend! I shall go to America, to Arabia, to India--perchance I shall die somewhere on the way. At any rate, I am convinced that, thanks to storms and bad roads, that last consolation will not quickly be exhausted!' "For a long time he went on speaking thus, and his words have remained stamped upon my memory, because it was the first time that I had heard such things from a man of five-and-twenty--and Heaven grant it may be the last. Isn't it astonishing? Tell me, please," continued the staff-captain, appealing to me. "You used to live in the Capital, I think, and that not so very long ago. Is it possible that the young men there are all like that?" I replied that there were a good many people who used the same sort of language, that, probably, there might even be some who spoke in all sincerity; that disillusionment, moreover, like all other vogues, having had its beginning in the higher strata of society, had descended to the lower, where it was being worn threadbare, and that, now, those who were really and truly bored strove to conceal their misfortune as if it were a vice. The staff-captain did not understand these subtleties, shook his head, and smiled slyly. "Anyhow, I suppose it was the French who introduced the fashion?" "No, the English." "Aha, there you are!" he answered. "They always have been arrant drunkards, you know!" Involuntarily I recalled to mind a certain lady, living in Moscow, who used to maintain that Byron was nothing more nor less than a drunkard. However, the staff-captain's observation was more excusable; in order to abstain from strong drink, he naturally endeavoured to convince himself that all the misfortunes in the world are the result of drunkenness. CHAPTER X MEANWHILE the staff-captain continued his story. "Kazbich never put in an appearance again; but somehow--I don't know why--I could not get the idea out of my head that he had had a reason for coming, and that some mischievous scheme was in his mind. "Well, one day Pechorin tried to persuade me to go boar-hunting with him. For a long time I refused. What novelty was a wild boar to me? "However, off he dragged me, all the same. We took four or five soldiers and set out early in the morning. Up till ten o'clock we scurried about the reeds and the forest--there wasn't a wild beast to be found! "'I say, oughtn't we to be going back?' I said. 'What's the use of sticking at it? It is evident enough that we have happened on an unlucky day!' "But, in spite of heat and fatigue, Pechorin didn't like to return empty-handed... That is just the kind of man he was; whatever he set his heart on he had to have--evidently, in his childhood, he had been spoiled by an indulgent mother. At last, at midday, we discovered one of those cursed wild boars--Bang! Bang!--No good!--Off it went into the reeds. That was an unlucky day, to be sure!... So, after a short rest, we set off homeward... "We rode in silence, side by side, giving the horses their head. We had almost reached the fortress, and only the brushwood concealed it from view. Suddenly a shot rang out... We glanced at each other, both struck with the selfsame suspicion... We galloped headlong in the direction of the shot, looked, and saw the soldiers clustered together on the rampart and pointing towards a field, along which a rider was flying at full speed, holding something white across his saddle. Grigori Aleksandrovich yelled like any Chechene, whipped his gun from its cover, and gave chase--I after him. "Luckily, thanks to our unsuccessful hunt, our horses were not jaded; they strained under the saddle, and with every moment we drew nearer and nearer... At length I recognised Kazbich, only I could not make out what it was that he was holding in front of him. "Then I drew level with Pechorin and shouted to him: "'It is Kazbich!' "He looked at me, nodded, and struck his horse with his whip. "At last we were within gunshot of Kazbich. Whether it was that his horse was jaded or not so good as ours, I don't know, but, in spite of all his efforts, it did not get along very fast. I fancy at that moment he remembered his Karagyoz! "I looked at Pechorin. He was taking aim as he galloped... "'Don't shoot,' I cried. 'Save the shot! We will catch up with him as it is.' "Oh, these young men! Always taking fire at the wrong moment! The shot rang out and the bullet broke one of the horse's hind legs. It gave a few fiery leaps forward, stumbled, and fell to its knees. Kazbich sprang off, and then we perceived that it was a woman he was holding in his arms--a woman wrapped in a veil. It was Bela--poor Bela! He shouted something to us in his own language and raised his dagger over her... Delay was useless; I fired in my turn, at haphazard. Probably the bullet struck him in the shoulder, because he dropped his hand suddenly. When the smoke cleared off, we could see the wounded horse lying on the ground and Bela beside it; but Kazbich, his gun flung away, was clambering like a cat up the cliff, through the brushwood. I should have liked to have brought him down from there--but I hadn't a charge ready. We jumped off our horses and rushed to Bela. Poor girl! She was lying motionless, and the blood was pouring in streams from her wound. The villain! If he had struck her to the heart--well and good, everything would at least have been finished there and then; but to stab her in the back like that--the scoundrel! She was unconscious. We tore the veil into strips and bound up the wound as tightly as we could. In vain Pechorin kissed her cold lips--it was impossible to bring her to. "Pechorin mounted; I lifted Bela from the ground and somehow managed to place her before him on his saddle; he put his arm round her and we rode back. "'Look here, Maksim Maksimych,' said Grigori Aleksandrovich, after a few moments of silence. 'We will never bring her in alive like this.' "'True!' I said, and we put our horses to a full gallop." CHAPTER XI "A CROWD was awaiting us at the fortress gate. Carefully we carried the wounded girl to Pechorin's quarters, and then we sent for the doctor. The latter was drunk, but he came, examined the wound, and announced that she could not live more than a day. He was mistaken, though." "She recovered?" I asked the staff-captain, seizing him by the arm, and involuntarily rejoicing. "No," he replied, "but the doctor was so far mistaken that she lived two days longer." "Explain, though, how Kazbich made off with her!" "It was like this: in spite of Pechorin's prohibition, she went out of the fortress and down to the river. It was a very hot day, you know, and she sat on a rock and dipped her feet in the water. Up crept Kazbich, pounced upon her, silenced her, and dragged her into the bushes. Then he sprang on his horse and made off. In the meantime she succeeded in crying out, the sentries took the alarm, fired, but wide of the mark; and thereupon we arrived on the scene." "But what did Kazbich want to carry her off for?" "Good gracious! Why, everyone knows these Circassians are a race of thieves; they can't keep their hands off anything that is left lying about! They may not want a thing, but they will steal it, for all that. Still, you mustn't be too hard on them. And, besides, he had been in love with her for a long time." "And Bela died?" "Yes, she died, but she suffered for a long time, and we were fairly knocked up with her, I can tell you. About ten o'clock in the evening she came to herself. We were sitting by her bed. As soon as ever she opened her eyes she began to call Pechorin. "'I am here beside you, my janechka' (that is, 'my darling'), he answered, taking her by the hand. "'I shall die,' she said. "We began to comfort her, telling her that the doctor had promised infallibly to cure her. She shook her little head and turned to the wall--she did not want to die!... "At night she became delirious, her head burned, at times a feverish paroxysm convulsed her whole body. She talked incoherently about her father, her brother; she yearned for the mountains, for her home... Then she spoke of Pechorin also, called him various fond names, or reproached him for having ceased to love his janechka. "He listened to her in silence, his head sunk in his hands; but yet, during the whole time, I did not notice a single tear-drop on his lashes. I do not know whether he was actually unable to weep or was mastering himself; but for my part I have never seen anything more pitiful. "Towards morning the delirium passed off. For an hour or so she lay motionless, pale, and so weak that it was hardly possible to observe that she was breathing. After that she grew better and began to talk: only about what, think you? Such thoughts come only to the dying!... She lamented that she was not a Christian, that in the other world her soul would never meet the soul of Grigori Aleksandrovich, and that in Paradise another woman would be his companion. The thought occurred to me to baptize her before her death. I told her my idea; she looked at me undecidedly, and for a long time was unable to utter a word. Finally she answered that she would die in the faith in which she had been born. A whole day passed thus. What a change that day made in her! Her pale cheeks fell in, her eyes grew ever so large, her lips burned. She felt a consuming heat within her, as though a red-hot blade was piercing her breast. "The second night came on. We did not close our eyes or leave the bedside. She suffered terribly, and groaned; and directly the pain began to abate she endeavoured to assure Grigori Aleksandrovich that she felt better, tried to persuade him to go to bed, kissed his hand and would not let it out of hers. Before the morning she began to feel the death agony and to toss about. She knocked the bandage off, and the blood flowed afresh. When the wound was bound up again she grew quiet for a moment and begged Pechorin to kiss her. He fell on his knees beside the bed, raised her head from the pillow, and pressed his lips to hers--which were growing cold. She threw her trembling arms closely round his neck, as if with that kiss she wished to yield up her soul to him.--No, she did well to die! Why, what would have become of her if Grigori Aleksandrovich had abandoned her? And that is what would have happened, sooner or later. "During half the following day she was calm, silent and docile, however much the doctor tortured her with his fomentations and mixtures. "'Good heavens!' I said to him, 'you know you said yourself that she was certain to die, so what is the good of all these preparations of yours?' "'Even so, it is better to do all this,' he replied, 'so that I may have an easy conscience.' "A pretty conscience, forsooth! "After midday Bela began to suffer from thirst. We opened the windows, but it was hotter outside than in the room; we placed ice round the bed--all to no purpose. I knew that that intolerable thirst was a sign of the approaching end, and I told Pechorin so. "'Water, water!' she said in a hoarse voice, raising herself up from the bed. "Pechorin turned pale as a sheet, seized a glass, filled it, and gave it to her. I covered my eyes with my hands and began to say a prayer--I can't remember what... Yes, my friend, many a time have I seen people die in hospitals or on the field of battle, but this was something altogether different! Still, this one thing grieves me, I must confess: she died without even once calling me to mind. Yet I loved her, I should think, like a father!... Well, God forgive her!... And, to tell the truth, what am I that she should have remembered me when she was dying?... "As soon as she had drunk the water, she grew easier--but in about three minutes she breathed her last! We put a looking-glass to her lips--it was undimmed! "I led Pechorin from the room, and we went on to the fortress rampart. For a long time we walked side by side, to and fro, speaking not a word and with our hands clasped behind our backs. His face expressed nothing out of the common--and that vexed me. Had I been in his place, I should have died of grief. At length he sat down on the ground in the shade and began to draw something in the sand with his stick. More for form's sake than anything, you know, I tried to console him and began to talk. He raised his head and burst into a laugh! At that laugh a cold shudder ran through me... I went away to order a coffin. "I confess it was partly to distract my thoughts that I busied myself in that way. I possessed a little piece of Circassian stuff, and I | statement | How many times the word 'statement' appears in the text? | 0 |
versts in two hours! Meanwhile the clouds had descended, hail and snow fell; the wind, bursting into the ravines, howled and whistled like Nightingale the Robber. [16] Soon the stone cross was hidden in the mist, the billows of which, in ever denser and more compact masses, rushed in from the east... Concerning that stone cross, by the way, there exists the strange, but widespread, tradition that it had been set up by the Emperor Peter the First when travelling through the Caucasus. In the first place, however, the Emperor went no farther than Daghestan; and, in the second place, there is an inscription in large letters on the cross itself, to the effect that it had been erected by order of General Ermolov, and that too in the year 1824. Nevertheless, the tradition has taken such firm root, in spite of the inscription, that really you do not know what to believe; the more so, as it is not the custom to believe inscriptions. To reach the station Kobi, we still had to descend about five versts, across ice-covered rocks and plashy snow. The horses were exhausted; we were freezing; the snowstorm droned with ever-increasing violence, exactly like the storms of our own northern land, only its wild melodies were sadder and more melancholy. "O Exile," I thought, "thou art weeping for thy wide, free steppes! There mayest thou unfold thy cold wings, but here thou art stifled and confined, like an eagle beating his wings, with a shriek, against the grating of his iron cage!" "A bad look out," said the staff-captain. "Look! There's nothing to be seen all round but mist and snow. At any moment we may tumble into an abyss or stick fast in a cleft; and a little lower down, I dare say, the Baidara has risen so high that there is no getting across it. Oh, this Asia, I know it! Like people, like rivers! There's no trusting them at all!" The drivers, shouting and cursing, belaboured the horses, which snorted, resisted obstinately, and refused to budge on any account, notwithstanding the eloquence of the whips. "Your honour," one of the drivers said to me at length, "you see, we will never reach Kobi to-day. Won't you give orders to turn to the left while we can? There is something black yonder on the slope--probably huts. Travellers always stop there in bad weather, sir. They say," he added, pointing to the Ossetes, "that they will lead us there if you will give them a tip." "I know that, my friend, I know that without your telling me," said the staff-captain. "Oh, these beasts! They are delighted to seize any pretext for extorting a tip!" "You must confess, however," I said, "that we should be worse off without them." "Just so, just so," he growled to himself. "I know them well--these guides! They scent out by instinct a chance of taking advantage of people. As if it was impossible to find the way without them!" Accordingly we turned aside to the left, and, somehow or other, after a good deal of trouble, made our way to the wretched shelter, which consisted of two huts built of stone slabs and rubble, surrounded by a wall of the same material. Our ragged hosts received us with alacrity. I learned afterwards that the Government supplies them with money and food upon condition that they put up travellers who are overtaken by storm. CHAPTER VIII "ALL is for the best," I said, sitting down close by the fire. "Now you will finish telling me your story about Bela. I am certain that what you have already told me was not the end of it." "Why are you so certain?" answered the staff-captain, winking and smiling slyly. "Because things don't happen like that. A story with such an unusual beginning must also have an unusual ending." "You have guessed, of course"... "I am very glad to hear it." "It is all very well for you to be glad, but, indeed, it makes me sad when I think of it. Bela was a splendid girl. In the end I grew accustomed to her just as if she had been my own daughter, and she loved me. I must tell you that I have no family. I have had no news of my father and mother for twelve years or so, and, in my earlier days, I never thought of providing myself with a wife--and now, you know, it wouldn't do. So I was glad to have found someone to spoil. She used to sing to us or dance the Lezginka. [17].. And what a dancer she was! I have seen our own ladies in provincial society; and on one occasion, sir, about twenty years ago, I was even in the Nobles' Club at Moscow--but was there a woman to be compared with her? Not one! Grigori Aleksandrovich dressed her up like a doll, petted and pampered her, and it was simply astonishing to see how pretty she grew while she lived with us. The sunburn disappeared from her face and hands, and a rosy colour came into her cheeks... What a merry girl she was! Always making fun of me, the little rogue!... Heaven forgive her!" "And when you told her of her father's death?" "We kept it a secret from her for a long time, until she had grown accustomed to her position; and then, when she was told, she cried for a day or two and forgot all about it. "For four months or so everything went on as well as it possibly could. Grigori Aleksandrovich, as I think I have already mentioned, was passionately fond of hunting; he was always craving to be off into the forest after boars or wild goats--but now it would be as much as he would do to go beyond the fortress rampart. All at once, however, I saw that he was beginning again to have fits of abstraction, walking about his room with his hands clasped behind his back. One day after that, without telling anyone, he set off shooting. During the whole morning he was not to be seen; then the same thing happened another time, and so on--oftener and oftener... "'This looks bad!' I said to myself. 'Something must have come between them!' "One morning I paid them a visit--I can see it all in my mind's eye, as if it was happening now. Bela was sitting on the bed, wearing a black silk jacket, and looking rather pale and so sad that I was alarmed. "'Where is Pechorin?' I asked. "'Hunting.' "'When did he go--to-day?' "'She was silent, as if she found a difficulty in answering. "'No, he has been gone since yesterday,' she said at length, with a heavy sigh. "'Surely nothing has happened to him!' "'Yesterday I thought and thought the whole day,' she answered through her tears; 'I imagined all sorts of misfortunes. At one time I fancied that he had been wounded by a wild boar, at another time, that he had been carried off by a Chechene into the mountains... But, now, I have come to think that he no longer loves me.' "'In truth, my dear girl, you could not have imagined anything worse!' "She burst out crying; then, proudly raising her head, she wiped away the tears and continued: "'If he does not love me, then who prevents him sending me home? I am not putting any constraint on him. But, if things go on like this, I will go away myself--I am not a slave, I am a prince's daughter!'... "I tried to talk her over. "'Listen, Bela. You see it is impossible for him to stop in here with you for ever, as if he was sewn on to your petticoat. He is a young man and fond of hunting. Off he'll go, but you will find that he will come back; and, if you are going to be unhappy, you will soon make him tired of you.' "'True, true!' she said. 'I will be merry.' "And with a burst of laughter, she seized her tambourine, began to sing, dance, and gambol around me. But that did not last long either; she fell upon the bed again and buried her face in her hands. "What could I do with her? You know I have never been accustomed to the society of women. I thought and thought how to cheer her up, but couldn't hit on anything. For some time both of us remained silent... A most unpleasant situation, sir! "At length I said to her: "'Would you like us to go and take a walk on the rampart? The weather is splendid.' "This was in September, and indeed it was a wonderful day, bright and not too hot. The mountains could be seen as clearly as though they were but a hand's-breadth away. We went, and walked in silence to and fro along the rampart of the fortress. At length she sat down on the sward, and I sat beside her. In truth, now, it is funny to think of it all! I used to run after her just like a kind of children's nurse! "Our fortress was situated in a lofty position, and the view from the rampart was superb. On one side, the wide clearing, seamed by a few clefts, was bounded by the forest which stretched out to the very ridge of the mountains. Here and there, on the clearing, villages were to be seen sending forth their smoke, and there were droves of horses roaming about. On the other side flowed a tiny stream, and close to its banks came the dense undergrowth which covered the flinty heights joining the principal chain of the Caucasus. We sat in a corner of the bastion, so that we could see everything on both sides. Suddenly I perceived someone on a grey horse riding out of the forest; nearer and nearer he approached until finally he stopped on the far side of the river, about a hundred fathoms from us, and began to wheel his horse round and round like one possessed. 'Strange!' I thought. "'Look, look, Bela,' I said, 'you've got young eyes--what sort of a horseman is that? Who is it he has come to amuse?'... "'It is Kazbich!' she exclaimed after a glance. "'Ah, the robber! Come to laugh at us, has he?' "I looked closely, and sure enough it was Kazbich, with his swarthy face, and as ragged and dirty as ever. "'It is my father's horse!' said Bela, seizing my arm. "She was trembling like a leaf and her eyes were sparkling. "'Aha!' I said to myself. 'There is robber's blood in your veins still, my dear!' "'Come here,' I said to the sentry. 'Look to your gun and unhorse that gallant for me--and you shall have a silver ruble.' "'Very well, your honour, only he won't keep still.' "'Tell him to!' I said, with a laugh. "'Hey, friend!' cried the sentry, waving his hand. 'Wait a bit. What are you spinning round like a humming-top for?' "Kazbich halted and gave ear to the sentry--probably thinking that we were going to parley with him. Quite the contrary!... My grenadier took aim... Bang!... Missed!... Just as the powder flashed in the pan Kazbich jogged his horse, which gave a bound to one side. He stood up in his stirrups, shouted something in his own language, made a threatening gesture with his whip--and was off. "'Aren't you ashamed of yourself?' I said to the sentry. "'He has gone away to die, your honour,' he answered. 'There's no killing a man of that cursed race at one stroke.' "A quarter of an hour later Pechorin returned from hunting. Bela threw herself on his neck without a single complaint, without a single reproach for his lengthy absence!... Even I was angry with him by this time! "'Good heavens!' I said; 'why, I tell you, Kazbich was here on the other side of the river just a moment ago, and we shot at him. How easily you might have run up against him, you know! These mountaineers are a vindictive race! Do you suppose he does not guess that you gave Azamat some help? And I wager that he recognised Bela to-day! I know he was desperately fond of her a year ago--he told me so himself--and, if he had had any hope of getting together a proper bridegroom's gift, he would certainly have sought her in marriage.' "At this Pechorin became thoughtful. "'Yes,' he answered. 'We must be more cautious--Bela, from this day forth you mustn't walk on the rampart any more.' "In the evening I had a lengthy explanation with him. I was vexed that his feelings towards the poor girl had changed; to say nothing of his spending half the day hunting, his manner towards her had become cold. He rarely caressed her, and she was beginning perceptibly to pine away; her little face was becoming drawn, her large eyes growing dim. "'What are you sighing for, Bela?' I would ask her. 'Are you sad?' "'No!' "'Do you want anything?' "'No!' "'You are pining for your kinsfolk?' "'I have none!' "Sometimes for whole days not a word could be drawn from her but 'Yes' and 'No.' "So I straightway proceeded to talk to Pechorin about her." CHAPTER IX "'LISTEN, Maksim Maksimych,' said Pechorin. 'Mine is an unfortunate disposition; whether it is the result of my upbringing or whether it is innate--I know not. I only know this, that if I am the cause of unhappiness in others I myself am no less unhappy. Of course, that is a poor consolation to them--only the fact remains that such is the case. In my early youth, from the moment I ceased to be under the guardianship of my relations, I began madly to enjoy all the pleasures which money could buy--and, of course, such pleasures became irksome to me. Then I launched out into the world of fashion--and that, too, soon palled upon me. I fell in love with fashionable beauties and was loved by them, but my imagination and egoism alone were aroused; my heart remained empty... I began to read, to study--but sciences also became utterly wearisome to me. I saw that neither fame nor happiness depends on them in the least, because the happiest people are the uneducated, and fame is good fortune, to attain which you have only to be smart. Then I grew bored... Soon afterwards I was transferred to the Caucasus; and that was the happiest time of my life. I hoped that under the bullets of the Chechenes boredom could not exist--a vain hope! In a month I grew so accustomed to the buzzing of the bullets and to the proximity of death that, to tell the truth, I paid more attention to the gnats--and I became more bored than ever, because I had lost what was almost my last hope. When I saw Bela in my own house; when, for the first time, I held her on my knee and kissed her black locks, I, fool that I was, thought that she was an angel sent to me by sympathetic fate... Again I was mistaken; the love of a savage is little better than that of your lady of quality, the barbaric ignorance and simplicity of the one weary you as much as the coquetry of the other. I am not saying that I do not love her still; I am grateful to her for a few fairly sweet moments; I would give my life for her--only I am bored with her... Whether I am a fool or a villain I know not; but this is certain, I am also most deserving of pity--perhaps more than she. My soul has been spoiled by the world, my imagination is unquiet, my heart insatiate. To me everything is of little moment. I become as easily accustomed to grief as to joy, and my life grows emptier day by day. One expedient only is left to me--travel. "'As soon as I can, I shall set off--but not to Europe. Heaven forfend! I shall go to America, to Arabia, to India--perchance I shall die somewhere on the way. At any rate, I am convinced that, thanks to storms and bad roads, that last consolation will not quickly be exhausted!' "For a long time he went on speaking thus, and his words have remained stamped upon my memory, because it was the first time that I had heard such things from a man of five-and-twenty--and Heaven grant it may be the last. Isn't it astonishing? Tell me, please," continued the staff-captain, appealing to me. "You used to live in the Capital, I think, and that not so very long ago. Is it possible that the young men there are all like that?" I replied that there were a good many people who used the same sort of language, that, probably, there might even be some who spoke in all sincerity; that disillusionment, moreover, like all other vogues, having had its beginning in the higher strata of society, had descended to the lower, where it was being worn threadbare, and that, now, those who were really and truly bored strove to conceal their misfortune as if it were a vice. The staff-captain did not understand these subtleties, shook his head, and smiled slyly. "Anyhow, I suppose it was the French who introduced the fashion?" "No, the English." "Aha, there you are!" he answered. "They always have been arrant drunkards, you know!" Involuntarily I recalled to mind a certain lady, living in Moscow, who used to maintain that Byron was nothing more nor less than a drunkard. However, the staff-captain's observation was more excusable; in order to abstain from strong drink, he naturally endeavoured to convince himself that all the misfortunes in the world are the result of drunkenness. CHAPTER X MEANWHILE the staff-captain continued his story. "Kazbich never put in an appearance again; but somehow--I don't know why--I could not get the idea out of my head that he had had a reason for coming, and that some mischievous scheme was in his mind. "Well, one day Pechorin tried to persuade me to go boar-hunting with him. For a long time I refused. What novelty was a wild boar to me? "However, off he dragged me, all the same. We took four or five soldiers and set out early in the morning. Up till ten o'clock we scurried about the reeds and the forest--there wasn't a wild beast to be found! "'I say, oughtn't we to be going back?' I said. 'What's the use of sticking at it? It is evident enough that we have happened on an unlucky day!' "But, in spite of heat and fatigue, Pechorin didn't like to return empty-handed... That is just the kind of man he was; whatever he set his heart on he had to have--evidently, in his childhood, he had been spoiled by an indulgent mother. At last, at midday, we discovered one of those cursed wild boars--Bang! Bang!--No good!--Off it went into the reeds. That was an unlucky day, to be sure!... So, after a short rest, we set off homeward... "We rode in silence, side by side, giving the horses their head. We had almost reached the fortress, and only the brushwood concealed it from view. Suddenly a shot rang out... We glanced at each other, both struck with the selfsame suspicion... We galloped headlong in the direction of the shot, looked, and saw the soldiers clustered together on the rampart and pointing towards a field, along which a rider was flying at full speed, holding something white across his saddle. Grigori Aleksandrovich yelled like any Chechene, whipped his gun from its cover, and gave chase--I after him. "Luckily, thanks to our unsuccessful hunt, our horses were not jaded; they strained under the saddle, and with every moment we drew nearer and nearer... At length I recognised Kazbich, only I could not make out what it was that he was holding in front of him. "Then I drew level with Pechorin and shouted to him: "'It is Kazbich!' "He looked at me, nodded, and struck his horse with his whip. "At last we were within gunshot of Kazbich. Whether it was that his horse was jaded or not so good as ours, I don't know, but, in spite of all his efforts, it did not get along very fast. I fancy at that moment he remembered his Karagyoz! "I looked at Pechorin. He was taking aim as he galloped... "'Don't shoot,' I cried. 'Save the shot! We will catch up with him as it is.' "Oh, these young men! Always taking fire at the wrong moment! The shot rang out and the bullet broke one of the horse's hind legs. It gave a few fiery leaps forward, stumbled, and fell to its knees. Kazbich sprang off, and then we perceived that it was a woman he was holding in his arms--a woman wrapped in a veil. It was Bela--poor Bela! He shouted something to us in his own language and raised his dagger over her... Delay was useless; I fired in my turn, at haphazard. Probably the bullet struck him in the shoulder, because he dropped his hand suddenly. When the smoke cleared off, we could see the wounded horse lying on the ground and Bela beside it; but Kazbich, his gun flung away, was clambering like a cat up the cliff, through the brushwood. I should have liked to have brought him down from there--but I hadn't a charge ready. We jumped off our horses and rushed to Bela. Poor girl! She was lying motionless, and the blood was pouring in streams from her wound. The villain! If he had struck her to the heart--well and good, everything would at least have been finished there and then; but to stab her in the back like that--the scoundrel! She was unconscious. We tore the veil into strips and bound up the wound as tightly as we could. In vain Pechorin kissed her cold lips--it was impossible to bring her to. "Pechorin mounted; I lifted Bela from the ground and somehow managed to place her before him on his saddle; he put his arm round her and we rode back. "'Look here, Maksim Maksimych,' said Grigori Aleksandrovich, after a few moments of silence. 'We will never bring her in alive like this.' "'True!' I said, and we put our horses to a full gallop." CHAPTER XI "A CROWD was awaiting us at the fortress gate. Carefully we carried the wounded girl to Pechorin's quarters, and then we sent for the doctor. The latter was drunk, but he came, examined the wound, and announced that she could not live more than a day. He was mistaken, though." "She recovered?" I asked the staff-captain, seizing him by the arm, and involuntarily rejoicing. "No," he replied, "but the doctor was so far mistaken that she lived two days longer." "Explain, though, how Kazbich made off with her!" "It was like this: in spite of Pechorin's prohibition, she went out of the fortress and down to the river. It was a very hot day, you know, and she sat on a rock and dipped her feet in the water. Up crept Kazbich, pounced upon her, silenced her, and dragged her into the bushes. Then he sprang on his horse and made off. In the meantime she succeeded in crying out, the sentries took the alarm, fired, but wide of the mark; and thereupon we arrived on the scene." "But what did Kazbich want to carry her off for?" "Good gracious! Why, everyone knows these Circassians are a race of thieves; they can't keep their hands off anything that is left lying about! They may not want a thing, but they will steal it, for all that. Still, you mustn't be too hard on them. And, besides, he had been in love with her for a long time." "And Bela died?" "Yes, she died, but she suffered for a long time, and we were fairly knocked up with her, I can tell you. About ten o'clock in the evening she came to herself. We were sitting by her bed. As soon as ever she opened her eyes she began to call Pechorin. "'I am here beside you, my janechka' (that is, 'my darling'), he answered, taking her by the hand. "'I shall die,' she said. "We began to comfort her, telling her that the doctor had promised infallibly to cure her. She shook her little head and turned to the wall--she did not want to die!... "At night she became delirious, her head burned, at times a feverish paroxysm convulsed her whole body. She talked incoherently about her father, her brother; she yearned for the mountains, for her home... Then she spoke of Pechorin also, called him various fond names, or reproached him for having ceased to love his janechka. "He listened to her in silence, his head sunk in his hands; but yet, during the whole time, I did not notice a single tear-drop on his lashes. I do not know whether he was actually unable to weep or was mastering himself; but for my part I have never seen anything more pitiful. "Towards morning the delirium passed off. For an hour or so she lay motionless, pale, and so weak that it was hardly possible to observe that she was breathing. After that she grew better and began to talk: only about what, think you? Such thoughts come only to the dying!... She lamented that she was not a Christian, that in the other world her soul would never meet the soul of Grigori Aleksandrovich, and that in Paradise another woman would be his companion. The thought occurred to me to baptize her before her death. I told her my idea; she looked at me undecidedly, and for a long time was unable to utter a word. Finally she answered that she would die in the faith in which she had been born. A whole day passed thus. What a change that day made in her! Her pale cheeks fell in, her eyes grew ever so large, her lips burned. She felt a consuming heat within her, as though a red-hot blade was piercing her breast. "The second night came on. We did not close our eyes or leave the bedside. She suffered terribly, and groaned; and directly the pain began to abate she endeavoured to assure Grigori Aleksandrovich that she felt better, tried to persuade him to go to bed, kissed his hand and would not let it out of hers. Before the morning she began to feel the death agony and to toss about. She knocked the bandage off, and the blood flowed afresh. When the wound was bound up again she grew quiet for a moment and begged Pechorin to kiss her. He fell on his knees beside the bed, raised her head from the pillow, and pressed his lips to hers--which were growing cold. She threw her trembling arms closely round his neck, as if with that kiss she wished to yield up her soul to him.--No, she did well to die! Why, what would have become of her if Grigori Aleksandrovich had abandoned her? And that is what would have happened, sooner or later. "During half the following day she was calm, silent and docile, however much the doctor tortured her with his fomentations and mixtures. "'Good heavens!' I said to him, 'you know you said yourself that she was certain to die, so what is the good of all these preparations of yours?' "'Even so, it is better to do all this,' he replied, 'so that I may have an easy conscience.' "A pretty conscience, forsooth! "After midday Bela began to suffer from thirst. We opened the windows, but it was hotter outside than in the room; we placed ice round the bed--all to no purpose. I knew that that intolerable thirst was a sign of the approaching end, and I told Pechorin so. "'Water, water!' she said in a hoarse voice, raising herself up from the bed. "Pechorin turned pale as a sheet, seized a glass, filled it, and gave it to her. I covered my eyes with my hands and began to say a prayer--I can't remember what... Yes, my friend, many a time have I seen people die in hospitals or on the field of battle, but this was something altogether different! Still, this one thing grieves me, I must confess: she died without even once calling me to mind. Yet I loved her, I should think, like a father!... Well, God forgive her!... And, to tell the truth, what am I that she should have remembered me when she was dying?... "As soon as she had drunk the water, she grew easier--but in about three minutes she breathed her last! We put a looking-glass to her lips--it was undimmed! "I led Pechorin from the room, and we went on to the fortress rampart. For a long time we walked side by side, to and fro, speaking not a word and with our hands clasped behind our backs. His face expressed nothing out of the common--and that vexed me. Had I been in his place, I should have died of grief. At length he sat down on the ground in the shade and began to draw something in the sand with his stick. More for form's sake than anything, you know, I tried to console him and began to talk. He raised his head and burst into a laugh! At that laugh a cold shudder ran through me... I went away to order a coffin. "I confess it was partly to distract my thoughts that I busied myself in that way. I possessed a little piece of Circassian stuff, and I | already | How many times the word 'already' appears in the text? | 2 |
versts in two hours! Meanwhile the clouds had descended, hail and snow fell; the wind, bursting into the ravines, howled and whistled like Nightingale the Robber. [16] Soon the stone cross was hidden in the mist, the billows of which, in ever denser and more compact masses, rushed in from the east... Concerning that stone cross, by the way, there exists the strange, but widespread, tradition that it had been set up by the Emperor Peter the First when travelling through the Caucasus. In the first place, however, the Emperor went no farther than Daghestan; and, in the second place, there is an inscription in large letters on the cross itself, to the effect that it had been erected by order of General Ermolov, and that too in the year 1824. Nevertheless, the tradition has taken such firm root, in spite of the inscription, that really you do not know what to believe; the more so, as it is not the custom to believe inscriptions. To reach the station Kobi, we still had to descend about five versts, across ice-covered rocks and plashy snow. The horses were exhausted; we were freezing; the snowstorm droned with ever-increasing violence, exactly like the storms of our own northern land, only its wild melodies were sadder and more melancholy. "O Exile," I thought, "thou art weeping for thy wide, free steppes! There mayest thou unfold thy cold wings, but here thou art stifled and confined, like an eagle beating his wings, with a shriek, against the grating of his iron cage!" "A bad look out," said the staff-captain. "Look! There's nothing to be seen all round but mist and snow. At any moment we may tumble into an abyss or stick fast in a cleft; and a little lower down, I dare say, the Baidara has risen so high that there is no getting across it. Oh, this Asia, I know it! Like people, like rivers! There's no trusting them at all!" The drivers, shouting and cursing, belaboured the horses, which snorted, resisted obstinately, and refused to budge on any account, notwithstanding the eloquence of the whips. "Your honour," one of the drivers said to me at length, "you see, we will never reach Kobi to-day. Won't you give orders to turn to the left while we can? There is something black yonder on the slope--probably huts. Travellers always stop there in bad weather, sir. They say," he added, pointing to the Ossetes, "that they will lead us there if you will give them a tip." "I know that, my friend, I know that without your telling me," said the staff-captain. "Oh, these beasts! They are delighted to seize any pretext for extorting a tip!" "You must confess, however," I said, "that we should be worse off without them." "Just so, just so," he growled to himself. "I know them well--these guides! They scent out by instinct a chance of taking advantage of people. As if it was impossible to find the way without them!" Accordingly we turned aside to the left, and, somehow or other, after a good deal of trouble, made our way to the wretched shelter, which consisted of two huts built of stone slabs and rubble, surrounded by a wall of the same material. Our ragged hosts received us with alacrity. I learned afterwards that the Government supplies them with money and food upon condition that they put up travellers who are overtaken by storm. CHAPTER VIII "ALL is for the best," I said, sitting down close by the fire. "Now you will finish telling me your story about Bela. I am certain that what you have already told me was not the end of it." "Why are you so certain?" answered the staff-captain, winking and smiling slyly. "Because things don't happen like that. A story with such an unusual beginning must also have an unusual ending." "You have guessed, of course"... "I am very glad to hear it." "It is all very well for you to be glad, but, indeed, it makes me sad when I think of it. Bela was a splendid girl. In the end I grew accustomed to her just as if she had been my own daughter, and she loved me. I must tell you that I have no family. I have had no news of my father and mother for twelve years or so, and, in my earlier days, I never thought of providing myself with a wife--and now, you know, it wouldn't do. So I was glad to have found someone to spoil. She used to sing to us or dance the Lezginka. [17].. And what a dancer she was! I have seen our own ladies in provincial society; and on one occasion, sir, about twenty years ago, I was even in the Nobles' Club at Moscow--but was there a woman to be compared with her? Not one! Grigori Aleksandrovich dressed her up like a doll, petted and pampered her, and it was simply astonishing to see how pretty she grew while she lived with us. The sunburn disappeared from her face and hands, and a rosy colour came into her cheeks... What a merry girl she was! Always making fun of me, the little rogue!... Heaven forgive her!" "And when you told her of her father's death?" "We kept it a secret from her for a long time, until she had grown accustomed to her position; and then, when she was told, she cried for a day or two and forgot all about it. "For four months or so everything went on as well as it possibly could. Grigori Aleksandrovich, as I think I have already mentioned, was passionately fond of hunting; he was always craving to be off into the forest after boars or wild goats--but now it would be as much as he would do to go beyond the fortress rampart. All at once, however, I saw that he was beginning again to have fits of abstraction, walking about his room with his hands clasped behind his back. One day after that, without telling anyone, he set off shooting. During the whole morning he was not to be seen; then the same thing happened another time, and so on--oftener and oftener... "'This looks bad!' I said to myself. 'Something must have come between them!' "One morning I paid them a visit--I can see it all in my mind's eye, as if it was happening now. Bela was sitting on the bed, wearing a black silk jacket, and looking rather pale and so sad that I was alarmed. "'Where is Pechorin?' I asked. "'Hunting.' "'When did he go--to-day?' "'She was silent, as if she found a difficulty in answering. "'No, he has been gone since yesterday,' she said at length, with a heavy sigh. "'Surely nothing has happened to him!' "'Yesterday I thought and thought the whole day,' she answered through her tears; 'I imagined all sorts of misfortunes. At one time I fancied that he had been wounded by a wild boar, at another time, that he had been carried off by a Chechene into the mountains... But, now, I have come to think that he no longer loves me.' "'In truth, my dear girl, you could not have imagined anything worse!' "She burst out crying; then, proudly raising her head, she wiped away the tears and continued: "'If he does not love me, then who prevents him sending me home? I am not putting any constraint on him. But, if things go on like this, I will go away myself--I am not a slave, I am a prince's daughter!'... "I tried to talk her over. "'Listen, Bela. You see it is impossible for him to stop in here with you for ever, as if he was sewn on to your petticoat. He is a young man and fond of hunting. Off he'll go, but you will find that he will come back; and, if you are going to be unhappy, you will soon make him tired of you.' "'True, true!' she said. 'I will be merry.' "And with a burst of laughter, she seized her tambourine, began to sing, dance, and gambol around me. But that did not last long either; she fell upon the bed again and buried her face in her hands. "What could I do with her? You know I have never been accustomed to the society of women. I thought and thought how to cheer her up, but couldn't hit on anything. For some time both of us remained silent... A most unpleasant situation, sir! "At length I said to her: "'Would you like us to go and take a walk on the rampart? The weather is splendid.' "This was in September, and indeed it was a wonderful day, bright and not too hot. The mountains could be seen as clearly as though they were but a hand's-breadth away. We went, and walked in silence to and fro along the rampart of the fortress. At length she sat down on the sward, and I sat beside her. In truth, now, it is funny to think of it all! I used to run after her just like a kind of children's nurse! "Our fortress was situated in a lofty position, and the view from the rampart was superb. On one side, the wide clearing, seamed by a few clefts, was bounded by the forest which stretched out to the very ridge of the mountains. Here and there, on the clearing, villages were to be seen sending forth their smoke, and there were droves of horses roaming about. On the other side flowed a tiny stream, and close to its banks came the dense undergrowth which covered the flinty heights joining the principal chain of the Caucasus. We sat in a corner of the bastion, so that we could see everything on both sides. Suddenly I perceived someone on a grey horse riding out of the forest; nearer and nearer he approached until finally he stopped on the far side of the river, about a hundred fathoms from us, and began to wheel his horse round and round like one possessed. 'Strange!' I thought. "'Look, look, Bela,' I said, 'you've got young eyes--what sort of a horseman is that? Who is it he has come to amuse?'... "'It is Kazbich!' she exclaimed after a glance. "'Ah, the robber! Come to laugh at us, has he?' "I looked closely, and sure enough it was Kazbich, with his swarthy face, and as ragged and dirty as ever. "'It is my father's horse!' said Bela, seizing my arm. "She was trembling like a leaf and her eyes were sparkling. "'Aha!' I said to myself. 'There is robber's blood in your veins still, my dear!' "'Come here,' I said to the sentry. 'Look to your gun and unhorse that gallant for me--and you shall have a silver ruble.' "'Very well, your honour, only he won't keep still.' "'Tell him to!' I said, with a laugh. "'Hey, friend!' cried the sentry, waving his hand. 'Wait a bit. What are you spinning round like a humming-top for?' "Kazbich halted and gave ear to the sentry--probably thinking that we were going to parley with him. Quite the contrary!... My grenadier took aim... Bang!... Missed!... Just as the powder flashed in the pan Kazbich jogged his horse, which gave a bound to one side. He stood up in his stirrups, shouted something in his own language, made a threatening gesture with his whip--and was off. "'Aren't you ashamed of yourself?' I said to the sentry. "'He has gone away to die, your honour,' he answered. 'There's no killing a man of that cursed race at one stroke.' "A quarter of an hour later Pechorin returned from hunting. Bela threw herself on his neck without a single complaint, without a single reproach for his lengthy absence!... Even I was angry with him by this time! "'Good heavens!' I said; 'why, I tell you, Kazbich was here on the other side of the river just a moment ago, and we shot at him. How easily you might have run up against him, you know! These mountaineers are a vindictive race! Do you suppose he does not guess that you gave Azamat some help? And I wager that he recognised Bela to-day! I know he was desperately fond of her a year ago--he told me so himself--and, if he had had any hope of getting together a proper bridegroom's gift, he would certainly have sought her in marriage.' "At this Pechorin became thoughtful. "'Yes,' he answered. 'We must be more cautious--Bela, from this day forth you mustn't walk on the rampart any more.' "In the evening I had a lengthy explanation with him. I was vexed that his feelings towards the poor girl had changed; to say nothing of his spending half the day hunting, his manner towards her had become cold. He rarely caressed her, and she was beginning perceptibly to pine away; her little face was becoming drawn, her large eyes growing dim. "'What are you sighing for, Bela?' I would ask her. 'Are you sad?' "'No!' "'Do you want anything?' "'No!' "'You are pining for your kinsfolk?' "'I have none!' "Sometimes for whole days not a word could be drawn from her but 'Yes' and 'No.' "So I straightway proceeded to talk to Pechorin about her." CHAPTER IX "'LISTEN, Maksim Maksimych,' said Pechorin. 'Mine is an unfortunate disposition; whether it is the result of my upbringing or whether it is innate--I know not. I only know this, that if I am the cause of unhappiness in others I myself am no less unhappy. Of course, that is a poor consolation to them--only the fact remains that such is the case. In my early youth, from the moment I ceased to be under the guardianship of my relations, I began madly to enjoy all the pleasures which money could buy--and, of course, such pleasures became irksome to me. Then I launched out into the world of fashion--and that, too, soon palled upon me. I fell in love with fashionable beauties and was loved by them, but my imagination and egoism alone were aroused; my heart remained empty... I began to read, to study--but sciences also became utterly wearisome to me. I saw that neither fame nor happiness depends on them in the least, because the happiest people are the uneducated, and fame is good fortune, to attain which you have only to be smart. Then I grew bored... Soon afterwards I was transferred to the Caucasus; and that was the happiest time of my life. I hoped that under the bullets of the Chechenes boredom could not exist--a vain hope! In a month I grew so accustomed to the buzzing of the bullets and to the proximity of death that, to tell the truth, I paid more attention to the gnats--and I became more bored than ever, because I had lost what was almost my last hope. When I saw Bela in my own house; when, for the first time, I held her on my knee and kissed her black locks, I, fool that I was, thought that she was an angel sent to me by sympathetic fate... Again I was mistaken; the love of a savage is little better than that of your lady of quality, the barbaric ignorance and simplicity of the one weary you as much as the coquetry of the other. I am not saying that I do not love her still; I am grateful to her for a few fairly sweet moments; I would give my life for her--only I am bored with her... Whether I am a fool or a villain I know not; but this is certain, I am also most deserving of pity--perhaps more than she. My soul has been spoiled by the world, my imagination is unquiet, my heart insatiate. To me everything is of little moment. I become as easily accustomed to grief as to joy, and my life grows emptier day by day. One expedient only is left to me--travel. "'As soon as I can, I shall set off--but not to Europe. Heaven forfend! I shall go to America, to Arabia, to India--perchance I shall die somewhere on the way. At any rate, I am convinced that, thanks to storms and bad roads, that last consolation will not quickly be exhausted!' "For a long time he went on speaking thus, and his words have remained stamped upon my memory, because it was the first time that I had heard such things from a man of five-and-twenty--and Heaven grant it may be the last. Isn't it astonishing? Tell me, please," continued the staff-captain, appealing to me. "You used to live in the Capital, I think, and that not so very long ago. Is it possible that the young men there are all like that?" I replied that there were a good many people who used the same sort of language, that, probably, there might even be some who spoke in all sincerity; that disillusionment, moreover, like all other vogues, having had its beginning in the higher strata of society, had descended to the lower, where it was being worn threadbare, and that, now, those who were really and truly bored strove to conceal their misfortune as if it were a vice. The staff-captain did not understand these subtleties, shook his head, and smiled slyly. "Anyhow, I suppose it was the French who introduced the fashion?" "No, the English." "Aha, there you are!" he answered. "They always have been arrant drunkards, you know!" Involuntarily I recalled to mind a certain lady, living in Moscow, who used to maintain that Byron was nothing more nor less than a drunkard. However, the staff-captain's observation was more excusable; in order to abstain from strong drink, he naturally endeavoured to convince himself that all the misfortunes in the world are the result of drunkenness. CHAPTER X MEANWHILE the staff-captain continued his story. "Kazbich never put in an appearance again; but somehow--I don't know why--I could not get the idea out of my head that he had had a reason for coming, and that some mischievous scheme was in his mind. "Well, one day Pechorin tried to persuade me to go boar-hunting with him. For a long time I refused. What novelty was a wild boar to me? "However, off he dragged me, all the same. We took four or five soldiers and set out early in the morning. Up till ten o'clock we scurried about the reeds and the forest--there wasn't a wild beast to be found! "'I say, oughtn't we to be going back?' I said. 'What's the use of sticking at it? It is evident enough that we have happened on an unlucky day!' "But, in spite of heat and fatigue, Pechorin didn't like to return empty-handed... That is just the kind of man he was; whatever he set his heart on he had to have--evidently, in his childhood, he had been spoiled by an indulgent mother. At last, at midday, we discovered one of those cursed wild boars--Bang! Bang!--No good!--Off it went into the reeds. That was an unlucky day, to be sure!... So, after a short rest, we set off homeward... "We rode in silence, side by side, giving the horses their head. We had almost reached the fortress, and only the brushwood concealed it from view. Suddenly a shot rang out... We glanced at each other, both struck with the selfsame suspicion... We galloped headlong in the direction of the shot, looked, and saw the soldiers clustered together on the rampart and pointing towards a field, along which a rider was flying at full speed, holding something white across his saddle. Grigori Aleksandrovich yelled like any Chechene, whipped his gun from its cover, and gave chase--I after him. "Luckily, thanks to our unsuccessful hunt, our horses were not jaded; they strained under the saddle, and with every moment we drew nearer and nearer... At length I recognised Kazbich, only I could not make out what it was that he was holding in front of him. "Then I drew level with Pechorin and shouted to him: "'It is Kazbich!' "He looked at me, nodded, and struck his horse with his whip. "At last we were within gunshot of Kazbich. Whether it was that his horse was jaded or not so good as ours, I don't know, but, in spite of all his efforts, it did not get along very fast. I fancy at that moment he remembered his Karagyoz! "I looked at Pechorin. He was taking aim as he galloped... "'Don't shoot,' I cried. 'Save the shot! We will catch up with him as it is.' "Oh, these young men! Always taking fire at the wrong moment! The shot rang out and the bullet broke one of the horse's hind legs. It gave a few fiery leaps forward, stumbled, and fell to its knees. Kazbich sprang off, and then we perceived that it was a woman he was holding in his arms--a woman wrapped in a veil. It was Bela--poor Bela! He shouted something to us in his own language and raised his dagger over her... Delay was useless; I fired in my turn, at haphazard. Probably the bullet struck him in the shoulder, because he dropped his hand suddenly. When the smoke cleared off, we could see the wounded horse lying on the ground and Bela beside it; but Kazbich, his gun flung away, was clambering like a cat up the cliff, through the brushwood. I should have liked to have brought him down from there--but I hadn't a charge ready. We jumped off our horses and rushed to Bela. Poor girl! She was lying motionless, and the blood was pouring in streams from her wound. The villain! If he had struck her to the heart--well and good, everything would at least have been finished there and then; but to stab her in the back like that--the scoundrel! She was unconscious. We tore the veil into strips and bound up the wound as tightly as we could. In vain Pechorin kissed her cold lips--it was impossible to bring her to. "Pechorin mounted; I lifted Bela from the ground and somehow managed to place her before him on his saddle; he put his arm round her and we rode back. "'Look here, Maksim Maksimych,' said Grigori Aleksandrovich, after a few moments of silence. 'We will never bring her in alive like this.' "'True!' I said, and we put our horses to a full gallop." CHAPTER XI "A CROWD was awaiting us at the fortress gate. Carefully we carried the wounded girl to Pechorin's quarters, and then we sent for the doctor. The latter was drunk, but he came, examined the wound, and announced that she could not live more than a day. He was mistaken, though." "She recovered?" I asked the staff-captain, seizing him by the arm, and involuntarily rejoicing. "No," he replied, "but the doctor was so far mistaken that she lived two days longer." "Explain, though, how Kazbich made off with her!" "It was like this: in spite of Pechorin's prohibition, she went out of the fortress and down to the river. It was a very hot day, you know, and she sat on a rock and dipped her feet in the water. Up crept Kazbich, pounced upon her, silenced her, and dragged her into the bushes. Then he sprang on his horse and made off. In the meantime she succeeded in crying out, the sentries took the alarm, fired, but wide of the mark; and thereupon we arrived on the scene." "But what did Kazbich want to carry her off for?" "Good gracious! Why, everyone knows these Circassians are a race of thieves; they can't keep their hands off anything that is left lying about! They may not want a thing, but they will steal it, for all that. Still, you mustn't be too hard on them. And, besides, he had been in love with her for a long time." "And Bela died?" "Yes, she died, but she suffered for a long time, and we were fairly knocked up with her, I can tell you. About ten o'clock in the evening she came to herself. We were sitting by her bed. As soon as ever she opened her eyes she began to call Pechorin. "'I am here beside you, my janechka' (that is, 'my darling'), he answered, taking her by the hand. "'I shall die,' she said. "We began to comfort her, telling her that the doctor had promised infallibly to cure her. She shook her little head and turned to the wall--she did not want to die!... "At night she became delirious, her head burned, at times a feverish paroxysm convulsed her whole body. She talked incoherently about her father, her brother; she yearned for the mountains, for her home... Then she spoke of Pechorin also, called him various fond names, or reproached him for having ceased to love his janechka. "He listened to her in silence, his head sunk in his hands; but yet, during the whole time, I did not notice a single tear-drop on his lashes. I do not know whether he was actually unable to weep or was mastering himself; but for my part I have never seen anything more pitiful. "Towards morning the delirium passed off. For an hour or so she lay motionless, pale, and so weak that it was hardly possible to observe that she was breathing. After that she grew better and began to talk: only about what, think you? Such thoughts come only to the dying!... She lamented that she was not a Christian, that in the other world her soul would never meet the soul of Grigori Aleksandrovich, and that in Paradise another woman would be his companion. The thought occurred to me to baptize her before her death. I told her my idea; she looked at me undecidedly, and for a long time was unable to utter a word. Finally she answered that she would die in the faith in which she had been born. A whole day passed thus. What a change that day made in her! Her pale cheeks fell in, her eyes grew ever so large, her lips burned. She felt a consuming heat within her, as though a red-hot blade was piercing her breast. "The second night came on. We did not close our eyes or leave the bedside. She suffered terribly, and groaned; and directly the pain began to abate she endeavoured to assure Grigori Aleksandrovich that she felt better, tried to persuade him to go to bed, kissed his hand and would not let it out of hers. Before the morning she began to feel the death agony and to toss about. She knocked the bandage off, and the blood flowed afresh. When the wound was bound up again she grew quiet for a moment and begged Pechorin to kiss her. He fell on his knees beside the bed, raised her head from the pillow, and pressed his lips to hers--which were growing cold. She threw her trembling arms closely round his neck, as if with that kiss she wished to yield up her soul to him.--No, she did well to die! Why, what would have become of her if Grigori Aleksandrovich had abandoned her? And that is what would have happened, sooner or later. "During half the following day she was calm, silent and docile, however much the doctor tortured her with his fomentations and mixtures. "'Good heavens!' I said to him, 'you know you said yourself that she was certain to die, so what is the good of all these preparations of yours?' "'Even so, it is better to do all this,' he replied, 'so that I may have an easy conscience.' "A pretty conscience, forsooth! "After midday Bela began to suffer from thirst. We opened the windows, but it was hotter outside than in the room; we placed ice round the bed--all to no purpose. I knew that that intolerable thirst was a sign of the approaching end, and I told Pechorin so. "'Water, water!' she said in a hoarse voice, raising herself up from the bed. "Pechorin turned pale as a sheet, seized a glass, filled it, and gave it to her. I covered my eyes with my hands and began to say a prayer--I can't remember what... Yes, my friend, many a time have I seen people die in hospitals or on the field of battle, but this was something altogether different! Still, this one thing grieves me, I must confess: she died without even once calling me to mind. Yet I loved her, I should think, like a father!... Well, God forgive her!... And, to tell the truth, what am I that she should have remembered me when she was dying?... "As soon as she had drunk the water, she grew easier--but in about three minutes she breathed her last! We put a looking-glass to her lips--it was undimmed! "I led Pechorin from the room, and we went on to the fortress rampart. For a long time we walked side by side, to and fro, speaking not a word and with our hands clasped behind our backs. His face expressed nothing out of the common--and that vexed me. Had I been in his place, I should have died of grief. At length he sat down on the ground in the shade and began to draw something in the sand with his stick. More for form's sake than anything, you know, I tried to console him and began to talk. He raised his head and burst into a laugh! At that laugh a cold shudder ran through me... I went away to order a coffin. "I confess it was partly to distract my thoughts that I busied myself in that way. I possessed a little piece of Circassian stuff, and I | firm | How many times the word 'firm' appears in the text? | 1 |
versts in two hours! Meanwhile the clouds had descended, hail and snow fell; the wind, bursting into the ravines, howled and whistled like Nightingale the Robber. [16] Soon the stone cross was hidden in the mist, the billows of which, in ever denser and more compact masses, rushed in from the east... Concerning that stone cross, by the way, there exists the strange, but widespread, tradition that it had been set up by the Emperor Peter the First when travelling through the Caucasus. In the first place, however, the Emperor went no farther than Daghestan; and, in the second place, there is an inscription in large letters on the cross itself, to the effect that it had been erected by order of General Ermolov, and that too in the year 1824. Nevertheless, the tradition has taken such firm root, in spite of the inscription, that really you do not know what to believe; the more so, as it is not the custom to believe inscriptions. To reach the station Kobi, we still had to descend about five versts, across ice-covered rocks and plashy snow. The horses were exhausted; we were freezing; the snowstorm droned with ever-increasing violence, exactly like the storms of our own northern land, only its wild melodies were sadder and more melancholy. "O Exile," I thought, "thou art weeping for thy wide, free steppes! There mayest thou unfold thy cold wings, but here thou art stifled and confined, like an eagle beating his wings, with a shriek, against the grating of his iron cage!" "A bad look out," said the staff-captain. "Look! There's nothing to be seen all round but mist and snow. At any moment we may tumble into an abyss or stick fast in a cleft; and a little lower down, I dare say, the Baidara has risen so high that there is no getting across it. Oh, this Asia, I know it! Like people, like rivers! There's no trusting them at all!" The drivers, shouting and cursing, belaboured the horses, which snorted, resisted obstinately, and refused to budge on any account, notwithstanding the eloquence of the whips. "Your honour," one of the drivers said to me at length, "you see, we will never reach Kobi to-day. Won't you give orders to turn to the left while we can? There is something black yonder on the slope--probably huts. Travellers always stop there in bad weather, sir. They say," he added, pointing to the Ossetes, "that they will lead us there if you will give them a tip." "I know that, my friend, I know that without your telling me," said the staff-captain. "Oh, these beasts! They are delighted to seize any pretext for extorting a tip!" "You must confess, however," I said, "that we should be worse off without them." "Just so, just so," he growled to himself. "I know them well--these guides! They scent out by instinct a chance of taking advantage of people. As if it was impossible to find the way without them!" Accordingly we turned aside to the left, and, somehow or other, after a good deal of trouble, made our way to the wretched shelter, which consisted of two huts built of stone slabs and rubble, surrounded by a wall of the same material. Our ragged hosts received us with alacrity. I learned afterwards that the Government supplies them with money and food upon condition that they put up travellers who are overtaken by storm. CHAPTER VIII "ALL is for the best," I said, sitting down close by the fire. "Now you will finish telling me your story about Bela. I am certain that what you have already told me was not the end of it." "Why are you so certain?" answered the staff-captain, winking and smiling slyly. "Because things don't happen like that. A story with such an unusual beginning must also have an unusual ending." "You have guessed, of course"... "I am very glad to hear it." "It is all very well for you to be glad, but, indeed, it makes me sad when I think of it. Bela was a splendid girl. In the end I grew accustomed to her just as if she had been my own daughter, and she loved me. I must tell you that I have no family. I have had no news of my father and mother for twelve years or so, and, in my earlier days, I never thought of providing myself with a wife--and now, you know, it wouldn't do. So I was glad to have found someone to spoil. She used to sing to us or dance the Lezginka. [17].. And what a dancer she was! I have seen our own ladies in provincial society; and on one occasion, sir, about twenty years ago, I was even in the Nobles' Club at Moscow--but was there a woman to be compared with her? Not one! Grigori Aleksandrovich dressed her up like a doll, petted and pampered her, and it was simply astonishing to see how pretty she grew while she lived with us. The sunburn disappeared from her face and hands, and a rosy colour came into her cheeks... What a merry girl she was! Always making fun of me, the little rogue!... Heaven forgive her!" "And when you told her of her father's death?" "We kept it a secret from her for a long time, until she had grown accustomed to her position; and then, when she was told, she cried for a day or two and forgot all about it. "For four months or so everything went on as well as it possibly could. Grigori Aleksandrovich, as I think I have already mentioned, was passionately fond of hunting; he was always craving to be off into the forest after boars or wild goats--but now it would be as much as he would do to go beyond the fortress rampart. All at once, however, I saw that he was beginning again to have fits of abstraction, walking about his room with his hands clasped behind his back. One day after that, without telling anyone, he set off shooting. During the whole morning he was not to be seen; then the same thing happened another time, and so on--oftener and oftener... "'This looks bad!' I said to myself. 'Something must have come between them!' "One morning I paid them a visit--I can see it all in my mind's eye, as if it was happening now. Bela was sitting on the bed, wearing a black silk jacket, and looking rather pale and so sad that I was alarmed. "'Where is Pechorin?' I asked. "'Hunting.' "'When did he go--to-day?' "'She was silent, as if she found a difficulty in answering. "'No, he has been gone since yesterday,' she said at length, with a heavy sigh. "'Surely nothing has happened to him!' "'Yesterday I thought and thought the whole day,' she answered through her tears; 'I imagined all sorts of misfortunes. At one time I fancied that he had been wounded by a wild boar, at another time, that he had been carried off by a Chechene into the mountains... But, now, I have come to think that he no longer loves me.' "'In truth, my dear girl, you could not have imagined anything worse!' "She burst out crying; then, proudly raising her head, she wiped away the tears and continued: "'If he does not love me, then who prevents him sending me home? I am not putting any constraint on him. But, if things go on like this, I will go away myself--I am not a slave, I am a prince's daughter!'... "I tried to talk her over. "'Listen, Bela. You see it is impossible for him to stop in here with you for ever, as if he was sewn on to your petticoat. He is a young man and fond of hunting. Off he'll go, but you will find that he will come back; and, if you are going to be unhappy, you will soon make him tired of you.' "'True, true!' she said. 'I will be merry.' "And with a burst of laughter, she seized her tambourine, began to sing, dance, and gambol around me. But that did not last long either; she fell upon the bed again and buried her face in her hands. "What could I do with her? You know I have never been accustomed to the society of women. I thought and thought how to cheer her up, but couldn't hit on anything. For some time both of us remained silent... A most unpleasant situation, sir! "At length I said to her: "'Would you like us to go and take a walk on the rampart? The weather is splendid.' "This was in September, and indeed it was a wonderful day, bright and not too hot. The mountains could be seen as clearly as though they were but a hand's-breadth away. We went, and walked in silence to and fro along the rampart of the fortress. At length she sat down on the sward, and I sat beside her. In truth, now, it is funny to think of it all! I used to run after her just like a kind of children's nurse! "Our fortress was situated in a lofty position, and the view from the rampart was superb. On one side, the wide clearing, seamed by a few clefts, was bounded by the forest which stretched out to the very ridge of the mountains. Here and there, on the clearing, villages were to be seen sending forth their smoke, and there were droves of horses roaming about. On the other side flowed a tiny stream, and close to its banks came the dense undergrowth which covered the flinty heights joining the principal chain of the Caucasus. We sat in a corner of the bastion, so that we could see everything on both sides. Suddenly I perceived someone on a grey horse riding out of the forest; nearer and nearer he approached until finally he stopped on the far side of the river, about a hundred fathoms from us, and began to wheel his horse round and round like one possessed. 'Strange!' I thought. "'Look, look, Bela,' I said, 'you've got young eyes--what sort of a horseman is that? Who is it he has come to amuse?'... "'It is Kazbich!' she exclaimed after a glance. "'Ah, the robber! Come to laugh at us, has he?' "I looked closely, and sure enough it was Kazbich, with his swarthy face, and as ragged and dirty as ever. "'It is my father's horse!' said Bela, seizing my arm. "She was trembling like a leaf and her eyes were sparkling. "'Aha!' I said to myself. 'There is robber's blood in your veins still, my dear!' "'Come here,' I said to the sentry. 'Look to your gun and unhorse that gallant for me--and you shall have a silver ruble.' "'Very well, your honour, only he won't keep still.' "'Tell him to!' I said, with a laugh. "'Hey, friend!' cried the sentry, waving his hand. 'Wait a bit. What are you spinning round like a humming-top for?' "Kazbich halted and gave ear to the sentry--probably thinking that we were going to parley with him. Quite the contrary!... My grenadier took aim... Bang!... Missed!... Just as the powder flashed in the pan Kazbich jogged his horse, which gave a bound to one side. He stood up in his stirrups, shouted something in his own language, made a threatening gesture with his whip--and was off. "'Aren't you ashamed of yourself?' I said to the sentry. "'He has gone away to die, your honour,' he answered. 'There's no killing a man of that cursed race at one stroke.' "A quarter of an hour later Pechorin returned from hunting. Bela threw herself on his neck without a single complaint, without a single reproach for his lengthy absence!... Even I was angry with him by this time! "'Good heavens!' I said; 'why, I tell you, Kazbich was here on the other side of the river just a moment ago, and we shot at him. How easily you might have run up against him, you know! These mountaineers are a vindictive race! Do you suppose he does not guess that you gave Azamat some help? And I wager that he recognised Bela to-day! I know he was desperately fond of her a year ago--he told me so himself--and, if he had had any hope of getting together a proper bridegroom's gift, he would certainly have sought her in marriage.' "At this Pechorin became thoughtful. "'Yes,' he answered. 'We must be more cautious--Bela, from this day forth you mustn't walk on the rampart any more.' "In the evening I had a lengthy explanation with him. I was vexed that his feelings towards the poor girl had changed; to say nothing of his spending half the day hunting, his manner towards her had become cold. He rarely caressed her, and she was beginning perceptibly to pine away; her little face was becoming drawn, her large eyes growing dim. "'What are you sighing for, Bela?' I would ask her. 'Are you sad?' "'No!' "'Do you want anything?' "'No!' "'You are pining for your kinsfolk?' "'I have none!' "Sometimes for whole days not a word could be drawn from her but 'Yes' and 'No.' "So I straightway proceeded to talk to Pechorin about her." CHAPTER IX "'LISTEN, Maksim Maksimych,' said Pechorin. 'Mine is an unfortunate disposition; whether it is the result of my upbringing or whether it is innate--I know not. I only know this, that if I am the cause of unhappiness in others I myself am no less unhappy. Of course, that is a poor consolation to them--only the fact remains that such is the case. In my early youth, from the moment I ceased to be under the guardianship of my relations, I began madly to enjoy all the pleasures which money could buy--and, of course, such pleasures became irksome to me. Then I launched out into the world of fashion--and that, too, soon palled upon me. I fell in love with fashionable beauties and was loved by them, but my imagination and egoism alone were aroused; my heart remained empty... I began to read, to study--but sciences also became utterly wearisome to me. I saw that neither fame nor happiness depends on them in the least, because the happiest people are the uneducated, and fame is good fortune, to attain which you have only to be smart. Then I grew bored... Soon afterwards I was transferred to the Caucasus; and that was the happiest time of my life. I hoped that under the bullets of the Chechenes boredom could not exist--a vain hope! In a month I grew so accustomed to the buzzing of the bullets and to the proximity of death that, to tell the truth, I paid more attention to the gnats--and I became more bored than ever, because I had lost what was almost my last hope. When I saw Bela in my own house; when, for the first time, I held her on my knee and kissed her black locks, I, fool that I was, thought that she was an angel sent to me by sympathetic fate... Again I was mistaken; the love of a savage is little better than that of your lady of quality, the barbaric ignorance and simplicity of the one weary you as much as the coquetry of the other. I am not saying that I do not love her still; I am grateful to her for a few fairly sweet moments; I would give my life for her--only I am bored with her... Whether I am a fool or a villain I know not; but this is certain, I am also most deserving of pity--perhaps more than she. My soul has been spoiled by the world, my imagination is unquiet, my heart insatiate. To me everything is of little moment. I become as easily accustomed to grief as to joy, and my life grows emptier day by day. One expedient only is left to me--travel. "'As soon as I can, I shall set off--but not to Europe. Heaven forfend! I shall go to America, to Arabia, to India--perchance I shall die somewhere on the way. At any rate, I am convinced that, thanks to storms and bad roads, that last consolation will not quickly be exhausted!' "For a long time he went on speaking thus, and his words have remained stamped upon my memory, because it was the first time that I had heard such things from a man of five-and-twenty--and Heaven grant it may be the last. Isn't it astonishing? Tell me, please," continued the staff-captain, appealing to me. "You used to live in the Capital, I think, and that not so very long ago. Is it possible that the young men there are all like that?" I replied that there were a good many people who used the same sort of language, that, probably, there might even be some who spoke in all sincerity; that disillusionment, moreover, like all other vogues, having had its beginning in the higher strata of society, had descended to the lower, where it was being worn threadbare, and that, now, those who were really and truly bored strove to conceal their misfortune as if it were a vice. The staff-captain did not understand these subtleties, shook his head, and smiled slyly. "Anyhow, I suppose it was the French who introduced the fashion?" "No, the English." "Aha, there you are!" he answered. "They always have been arrant drunkards, you know!" Involuntarily I recalled to mind a certain lady, living in Moscow, who used to maintain that Byron was nothing more nor less than a drunkard. However, the staff-captain's observation was more excusable; in order to abstain from strong drink, he naturally endeavoured to convince himself that all the misfortunes in the world are the result of drunkenness. CHAPTER X MEANWHILE the staff-captain continued his story. "Kazbich never put in an appearance again; but somehow--I don't know why--I could not get the idea out of my head that he had had a reason for coming, and that some mischievous scheme was in his mind. "Well, one day Pechorin tried to persuade me to go boar-hunting with him. For a long time I refused. What novelty was a wild boar to me? "However, off he dragged me, all the same. We took four or five soldiers and set out early in the morning. Up till ten o'clock we scurried about the reeds and the forest--there wasn't a wild beast to be found! "'I say, oughtn't we to be going back?' I said. 'What's the use of sticking at it? It is evident enough that we have happened on an unlucky day!' "But, in spite of heat and fatigue, Pechorin didn't like to return empty-handed... That is just the kind of man he was; whatever he set his heart on he had to have--evidently, in his childhood, he had been spoiled by an indulgent mother. At last, at midday, we discovered one of those cursed wild boars--Bang! Bang!--No good!--Off it went into the reeds. That was an unlucky day, to be sure!... So, after a short rest, we set off homeward... "We rode in silence, side by side, giving the horses their head. We had almost reached the fortress, and only the brushwood concealed it from view. Suddenly a shot rang out... We glanced at each other, both struck with the selfsame suspicion... We galloped headlong in the direction of the shot, looked, and saw the soldiers clustered together on the rampart and pointing towards a field, along which a rider was flying at full speed, holding something white across his saddle. Grigori Aleksandrovich yelled like any Chechene, whipped his gun from its cover, and gave chase--I after him. "Luckily, thanks to our unsuccessful hunt, our horses were not jaded; they strained under the saddle, and with every moment we drew nearer and nearer... At length I recognised Kazbich, only I could not make out what it was that he was holding in front of him. "Then I drew level with Pechorin and shouted to him: "'It is Kazbich!' "He looked at me, nodded, and struck his horse with his whip. "At last we were within gunshot of Kazbich. Whether it was that his horse was jaded or not so good as ours, I don't know, but, in spite of all his efforts, it did not get along very fast. I fancy at that moment he remembered his Karagyoz! "I looked at Pechorin. He was taking aim as he galloped... "'Don't shoot,' I cried. 'Save the shot! We will catch up with him as it is.' "Oh, these young men! Always taking fire at the wrong moment! The shot rang out and the bullet broke one of the horse's hind legs. It gave a few fiery leaps forward, stumbled, and fell to its knees. Kazbich sprang off, and then we perceived that it was a woman he was holding in his arms--a woman wrapped in a veil. It was Bela--poor Bela! He shouted something to us in his own language and raised his dagger over her... Delay was useless; I fired in my turn, at haphazard. Probably the bullet struck him in the shoulder, because he dropped his hand suddenly. When the smoke cleared off, we could see the wounded horse lying on the ground and Bela beside it; but Kazbich, his gun flung away, was clambering like a cat up the cliff, through the brushwood. I should have liked to have brought him down from there--but I hadn't a charge ready. We jumped off our horses and rushed to Bela. Poor girl! She was lying motionless, and the blood was pouring in streams from her wound. The villain! If he had struck her to the heart--well and good, everything would at least have been finished there and then; but to stab her in the back like that--the scoundrel! She was unconscious. We tore the veil into strips and bound up the wound as tightly as we could. In vain Pechorin kissed her cold lips--it was impossible to bring her to. "Pechorin mounted; I lifted Bela from the ground and somehow managed to place her before him on his saddle; he put his arm round her and we rode back. "'Look here, Maksim Maksimych,' said Grigori Aleksandrovich, after a few moments of silence. 'We will never bring her in alive like this.' "'True!' I said, and we put our horses to a full gallop." CHAPTER XI "A CROWD was awaiting us at the fortress gate. Carefully we carried the wounded girl to Pechorin's quarters, and then we sent for the doctor. The latter was drunk, but he came, examined the wound, and announced that she could not live more than a day. He was mistaken, though." "She recovered?" I asked the staff-captain, seizing him by the arm, and involuntarily rejoicing. "No," he replied, "but the doctor was so far mistaken that she lived two days longer." "Explain, though, how Kazbich made off with her!" "It was like this: in spite of Pechorin's prohibition, she went out of the fortress and down to the river. It was a very hot day, you know, and she sat on a rock and dipped her feet in the water. Up crept Kazbich, pounced upon her, silenced her, and dragged her into the bushes. Then he sprang on his horse and made off. In the meantime she succeeded in crying out, the sentries took the alarm, fired, but wide of the mark; and thereupon we arrived on the scene." "But what did Kazbich want to carry her off for?" "Good gracious! Why, everyone knows these Circassians are a race of thieves; they can't keep their hands off anything that is left lying about! They may not want a thing, but they will steal it, for all that. Still, you mustn't be too hard on them. And, besides, he had been in love with her for a long time." "And Bela died?" "Yes, she died, but she suffered for a long time, and we were fairly knocked up with her, I can tell you. About ten o'clock in the evening she came to herself. We were sitting by her bed. As soon as ever she opened her eyes she began to call Pechorin. "'I am here beside you, my janechka' (that is, 'my darling'), he answered, taking her by the hand. "'I shall die,' she said. "We began to comfort her, telling her that the doctor had promised infallibly to cure her. She shook her little head and turned to the wall--she did not want to die!... "At night she became delirious, her head burned, at times a feverish paroxysm convulsed her whole body. She talked incoherently about her father, her brother; she yearned for the mountains, for her home... Then she spoke of Pechorin also, called him various fond names, or reproached him for having ceased to love his janechka. "He listened to her in silence, his head sunk in his hands; but yet, during the whole time, I did not notice a single tear-drop on his lashes. I do not know whether he was actually unable to weep or was mastering himself; but for my part I have never seen anything more pitiful. "Towards morning the delirium passed off. For an hour or so she lay motionless, pale, and so weak that it was hardly possible to observe that she was breathing. After that she grew better and began to talk: only about what, think you? Such thoughts come only to the dying!... She lamented that she was not a Christian, that in the other world her soul would never meet the soul of Grigori Aleksandrovich, and that in Paradise another woman would be his companion. The thought occurred to me to baptize her before her death. I told her my idea; she looked at me undecidedly, and for a long time was unable to utter a word. Finally she answered that she would die in the faith in which she had been born. A whole day passed thus. What a change that day made in her! Her pale cheeks fell in, her eyes grew ever so large, her lips burned. She felt a consuming heat within her, as though a red-hot blade was piercing her breast. "The second night came on. We did not close our eyes or leave the bedside. She suffered terribly, and groaned; and directly the pain began to abate she endeavoured to assure Grigori Aleksandrovich that she felt better, tried to persuade him to go to bed, kissed his hand and would not let it out of hers. Before the morning she began to feel the death agony and to toss about. She knocked the bandage off, and the blood flowed afresh. When the wound was bound up again she grew quiet for a moment and begged Pechorin to kiss her. He fell on his knees beside the bed, raised her head from the pillow, and pressed his lips to hers--which were growing cold. She threw her trembling arms closely round his neck, as if with that kiss she wished to yield up her soul to him.--No, she did well to die! Why, what would have become of her if Grigori Aleksandrovich had abandoned her? And that is what would have happened, sooner or later. "During half the following day she was calm, silent and docile, however much the doctor tortured her with his fomentations and mixtures. "'Good heavens!' I said to him, 'you know you said yourself that she was certain to die, so what is the good of all these preparations of yours?' "'Even so, it is better to do all this,' he replied, 'so that I may have an easy conscience.' "A pretty conscience, forsooth! "After midday Bela began to suffer from thirst. We opened the windows, but it was hotter outside than in the room; we placed ice round the bed--all to no purpose. I knew that that intolerable thirst was a sign of the approaching end, and I told Pechorin so. "'Water, water!' she said in a hoarse voice, raising herself up from the bed. "Pechorin turned pale as a sheet, seized a glass, filled it, and gave it to her. I covered my eyes with my hands and began to say a prayer--I can't remember what... Yes, my friend, many a time have I seen people die in hospitals or on the field of battle, but this was something altogether different! Still, this one thing grieves me, I must confess: she died without even once calling me to mind. Yet I loved her, I should think, like a father!... Well, God forgive her!... And, to tell the truth, what am I that she should have remembered me when she was dying?... "As soon as she had drunk the water, she grew easier--but in about three minutes she breathed her last! We put a looking-glass to her lips--it was undimmed! "I led Pechorin from the room, and we went on to the fortress rampart. For a long time we walked side by side, to and fro, speaking not a word and with our hands clasped behind our backs. His face expressed nothing out of the common--and that vexed me. Had I been in his place, I should have died of grief. At length he sat down on the ground in the shade and began to draw something in the sand with his stick. More for form's sake than anything, you know, I tried to console him and began to talk. He raised his head and burst into a laugh! At that laugh a cold shudder ran through me... I went away to order a coffin. "I confess it was partly to distract my thoughts that I busied myself in that way. I possessed a little piece of Circassian stuff, and I | became | How many times the word 'became' appears in the text? | 3 |
versts in two hours! Meanwhile the clouds had descended, hail and snow fell; the wind, bursting into the ravines, howled and whistled like Nightingale the Robber. [16] Soon the stone cross was hidden in the mist, the billows of which, in ever denser and more compact masses, rushed in from the east... Concerning that stone cross, by the way, there exists the strange, but widespread, tradition that it had been set up by the Emperor Peter the First when travelling through the Caucasus. In the first place, however, the Emperor went no farther than Daghestan; and, in the second place, there is an inscription in large letters on the cross itself, to the effect that it had been erected by order of General Ermolov, and that too in the year 1824. Nevertheless, the tradition has taken such firm root, in spite of the inscription, that really you do not know what to believe; the more so, as it is not the custom to believe inscriptions. To reach the station Kobi, we still had to descend about five versts, across ice-covered rocks and plashy snow. The horses were exhausted; we were freezing; the snowstorm droned with ever-increasing violence, exactly like the storms of our own northern land, only its wild melodies were sadder and more melancholy. "O Exile," I thought, "thou art weeping for thy wide, free steppes! There mayest thou unfold thy cold wings, but here thou art stifled and confined, like an eagle beating his wings, with a shriek, against the grating of his iron cage!" "A bad look out," said the staff-captain. "Look! There's nothing to be seen all round but mist and snow. At any moment we may tumble into an abyss or stick fast in a cleft; and a little lower down, I dare say, the Baidara has risen so high that there is no getting across it. Oh, this Asia, I know it! Like people, like rivers! There's no trusting them at all!" The drivers, shouting and cursing, belaboured the horses, which snorted, resisted obstinately, and refused to budge on any account, notwithstanding the eloquence of the whips. "Your honour," one of the drivers said to me at length, "you see, we will never reach Kobi to-day. Won't you give orders to turn to the left while we can? There is something black yonder on the slope--probably huts. Travellers always stop there in bad weather, sir. They say," he added, pointing to the Ossetes, "that they will lead us there if you will give them a tip." "I know that, my friend, I know that without your telling me," said the staff-captain. "Oh, these beasts! They are delighted to seize any pretext for extorting a tip!" "You must confess, however," I said, "that we should be worse off without them." "Just so, just so," he growled to himself. "I know them well--these guides! They scent out by instinct a chance of taking advantage of people. As if it was impossible to find the way without them!" Accordingly we turned aside to the left, and, somehow or other, after a good deal of trouble, made our way to the wretched shelter, which consisted of two huts built of stone slabs and rubble, surrounded by a wall of the same material. Our ragged hosts received us with alacrity. I learned afterwards that the Government supplies them with money and food upon condition that they put up travellers who are overtaken by storm. CHAPTER VIII "ALL is for the best," I said, sitting down close by the fire. "Now you will finish telling me your story about Bela. I am certain that what you have already told me was not the end of it." "Why are you so certain?" answered the staff-captain, winking and smiling slyly. "Because things don't happen like that. A story with such an unusual beginning must also have an unusual ending." "You have guessed, of course"... "I am very glad to hear it." "It is all very well for you to be glad, but, indeed, it makes me sad when I think of it. Bela was a splendid girl. In the end I grew accustomed to her just as if she had been my own daughter, and she loved me. I must tell you that I have no family. I have had no news of my father and mother for twelve years or so, and, in my earlier days, I never thought of providing myself with a wife--and now, you know, it wouldn't do. So I was glad to have found someone to spoil. She used to sing to us or dance the Lezginka. [17].. And what a dancer she was! I have seen our own ladies in provincial society; and on one occasion, sir, about twenty years ago, I was even in the Nobles' Club at Moscow--but was there a woman to be compared with her? Not one! Grigori Aleksandrovich dressed her up like a doll, petted and pampered her, and it was simply astonishing to see how pretty she grew while she lived with us. The sunburn disappeared from her face and hands, and a rosy colour came into her cheeks... What a merry girl she was! Always making fun of me, the little rogue!... Heaven forgive her!" "And when you told her of her father's death?" "We kept it a secret from her for a long time, until she had grown accustomed to her position; and then, when she was told, she cried for a day or two and forgot all about it. "For four months or so everything went on as well as it possibly could. Grigori Aleksandrovich, as I think I have already mentioned, was passionately fond of hunting; he was always craving to be off into the forest after boars or wild goats--but now it would be as much as he would do to go beyond the fortress rampart. All at once, however, I saw that he was beginning again to have fits of abstraction, walking about his room with his hands clasped behind his back. One day after that, without telling anyone, he set off shooting. During the whole morning he was not to be seen; then the same thing happened another time, and so on--oftener and oftener... "'This looks bad!' I said to myself. 'Something must have come between them!' "One morning I paid them a visit--I can see it all in my mind's eye, as if it was happening now. Bela was sitting on the bed, wearing a black silk jacket, and looking rather pale and so sad that I was alarmed. "'Where is Pechorin?' I asked. "'Hunting.' "'When did he go--to-day?' "'She was silent, as if she found a difficulty in answering. "'No, he has been gone since yesterday,' she said at length, with a heavy sigh. "'Surely nothing has happened to him!' "'Yesterday I thought and thought the whole day,' she answered through her tears; 'I imagined all sorts of misfortunes. At one time I fancied that he had been wounded by a wild boar, at another time, that he had been carried off by a Chechene into the mountains... But, now, I have come to think that he no longer loves me.' "'In truth, my dear girl, you could not have imagined anything worse!' "She burst out crying; then, proudly raising her head, she wiped away the tears and continued: "'If he does not love me, then who prevents him sending me home? I am not putting any constraint on him. But, if things go on like this, I will go away myself--I am not a slave, I am a prince's daughter!'... "I tried to talk her over. "'Listen, Bela. You see it is impossible for him to stop in here with you for ever, as if he was sewn on to your petticoat. He is a young man and fond of hunting. Off he'll go, but you will find that he will come back; and, if you are going to be unhappy, you will soon make him tired of you.' "'True, true!' she said. 'I will be merry.' "And with a burst of laughter, she seized her tambourine, began to sing, dance, and gambol around me. But that did not last long either; she fell upon the bed again and buried her face in her hands. "What could I do with her? You know I have never been accustomed to the society of women. I thought and thought how to cheer her up, but couldn't hit on anything. For some time both of us remained silent... A most unpleasant situation, sir! "At length I said to her: "'Would you like us to go and take a walk on the rampart? The weather is splendid.' "This was in September, and indeed it was a wonderful day, bright and not too hot. The mountains could be seen as clearly as though they were but a hand's-breadth away. We went, and walked in silence to and fro along the rampart of the fortress. At length she sat down on the sward, and I sat beside her. In truth, now, it is funny to think of it all! I used to run after her just like a kind of children's nurse! "Our fortress was situated in a lofty position, and the view from the rampart was superb. On one side, the wide clearing, seamed by a few clefts, was bounded by the forest which stretched out to the very ridge of the mountains. Here and there, on the clearing, villages were to be seen sending forth their smoke, and there were droves of horses roaming about. On the other side flowed a tiny stream, and close to its banks came the dense undergrowth which covered the flinty heights joining the principal chain of the Caucasus. We sat in a corner of the bastion, so that we could see everything on both sides. Suddenly I perceived someone on a grey horse riding out of the forest; nearer and nearer he approached until finally he stopped on the far side of the river, about a hundred fathoms from us, and began to wheel his horse round and round like one possessed. 'Strange!' I thought. "'Look, look, Bela,' I said, 'you've got young eyes--what sort of a horseman is that? Who is it he has come to amuse?'... "'It is Kazbich!' she exclaimed after a glance. "'Ah, the robber! Come to laugh at us, has he?' "I looked closely, and sure enough it was Kazbich, with his swarthy face, and as ragged and dirty as ever. "'It is my father's horse!' said Bela, seizing my arm. "She was trembling like a leaf and her eyes were sparkling. "'Aha!' I said to myself. 'There is robber's blood in your veins still, my dear!' "'Come here,' I said to the sentry. 'Look to your gun and unhorse that gallant for me--and you shall have a silver ruble.' "'Very well, your honour, only he won't keep still.' "'Tell him to!' I said, with a laugh. "'Hey, friend!' cried the sentry, waving his hand. 'Wait a bit. What are you spinning round like a humming-top for?' "Kazbich halted and gave ear to the sentry--probably thinking that we were going to parley with him. Quite the contrary!... My grenadier took aim... Bang!... Missed!... Just as the powder flashed in the pan Kazbich jogged his horse, which gave a bound to one side. He stood up in his stirrups, shouted something in his own language, made a threatening gesture with his whip--and was off. "'Aren't you ashamed of yourself?' I said to the sentry. "'He has gone away to die, your honour,' he answered. 'There's no killing a man of that cursed race at one stroke.' "A quarter of an hour later Pechorin returned from hunting. Bela threw herself on his neck without a single complaint, without a single reproach for his lengthy absence!... Even I was angry with him by this time! "'Good heavens!' I said; 'why, I tell you, Kazbich was here on the other side of the river just a moment ago, and we shot at him. How easily you might have run up against him, you know! These mountaineers are a vindictive race! Do you suppose he does not guess that you gave Azamat some help? And I wager that he recognised Bela to-day! I know he was desperately fond of her a year ago--he told me so himself--and, if he had had any hope of getting together a proper bridegroom's gift, he would certainly have sought her in marriage.' "At this Pechorin became thoughtful. "'Yes,' he answered. 'We must be more cautious--Bela, from this day forth you mustn't walk on the rampart any more.' "In the evening I had a lengthy explanation with him. I was vexed that his feelings towards the poor girl had changed; to say nothing of his spending half the day hunting, his manner towards her had become cold. He rarely caressed her, and she was beginning perceptibly to pine away; her little face was becoming drawn, her large eyes growing dim. "'What are you sighing for, Bela?' I would ask her. 'Are you sad?' "'No!' "'Do you want anything?' "'No!' "'You are pining for your kinsfolk?' "'I have none!' "Sometimes for whole days not a word could be drawn from her but 'Yes' and 'No.' "So I straightway proceeded to talk to Pechorin about her." CHAPTER IX "'LISTEN, Maksim Maksimych,' said Pechorin. 'Mine is an unfortunate disposition; whether it is the result of my upbringing or whether it is innate--I know not. I only know this, that if I am the cause of unhappiness in others I myself am no less unhappy. Of course, that is a poor consolation to them--only the fact remains that such is the case. In my early youth, from the moment I ceased to be under the guardianship of my relations, I began madly to enjoy all the pleasures which money could buy--and, of course, such pleasures became irksome to me. Then I launched out into the world of fashion--and that, too, soon palled upon me. I fell in love with fashionable beauties and was loved by them, but my imagination and egoism alone were aroused; my heart remained empty... I began to read, to study--but sciences also became utterly wearisome to me. I saw that neither fame nor happiness depends on them in the least, because the happiest people are the uneducated, and fame is good fortune, to attain which you have only to be smart. Then I grew bored... Soon afterwards I was transferred to the Caucasus; and that was the happiest time of my life. I hoped that under the bullets of the Chechenes boredom could not exist--a vain hope! In a month I grew so accustomed to the buzzing of the bullets and to the proximity of death that, to tell the truth, I paid more attention to the gnats--and I became more bored than ever, because I had lost what was almost my last hope. When I saw Bela in my own house; when, for the first time, I held her on my knee and kissed her black locks, I, fool that I was, thought that she was an angel sent to me by sympathetic fate... Again I was mistaken; the love of a savage is little better than that of your lady of quality, the barbaric ignorance and simplicity of the one weary you as much as the coquetry of the other. I am not saying that I do not love her still; I am grateful to her for a few fairly sweet moments; I would give my life for her--only I am bored with her... Whether I am a fool or a villain I know not; but this is certain, I am also most deserving of pity--perhaps more than she. My soul has been spoiled by the world, my imagination is unquiet, my heart insatiate. To me everything is of little moment. I become as easily accustomed to grief as to joy, and my life grows emptier day by day. One expedient only is left to me--travel. "'As soon as I can, I shall set off--but not to Europe. Heaven forfend! I shall go to America, to Arabia, to India--perchance I shall die somewhere on the way. At any rate, I am convinced that, thanks to storms and bad roads, that last consolation will not quickly be exhausted!' "For a long time he went on speaking thus, and his words have remained stamped upon my memory, because it was the first time that I had heard such things from a man of five-and-twenty--and Heaven grant it may be the last. Isn't it astonishing? Tell me, please," continued the staff-captain, appealing to me. "You used to live in the Capital, I think, and that not so very long ago. Is it possible that the young men there are all like that?" I replied that there were a good many people who used the same sort of language, that, probably, there might even be some who spoke in all sincerity; that disillusionment, moreover, like all other vogues, having had its beginning in the higher strata of society, had descended to the lower, where it was being worn threadbare, and that, now, those who were really and truly bored strove to conceal their misfortune as if it were a vice. The staff-captain did not understand these subtleties, shook his head, and smiled slyly. "Anyhow, I suppose it was the French who introduced the fashion?" "No, the English." "Aha, there you are!" he answered. "They always have been arrant drunkards, you know!" Involuntarily I recalled to mind a certain lady, living in Moscow, who used to maintain that Byron was nothing more nor less than a drunkard. However, the staff-captain's observation was more excusable; in order to abstain from strong drink, he naturally endeavoured to convince himself that all the misfortunes in the world are the result of drunkenness. CHAPTER X MEANWHILE the staff-captain continued his story. "Kazbich never put in an appearance again; but somehow--I don't know why--I could not get the idea out of my head that he had had a reason for coming, and that some mischievous scheme was in his mind. "Well, one day Pechorin tried to persuade me to go boar-hunting with him. For a long time I refused. What novelty was a wild boar to me? "However, off he dragged me, all the same. We took four or five soldiers and set out early in the morning. Up till ten o'clock we scurried about the reeds and the forest--there wasn't a wild beast to be found! "'I say, oughtn't we to be going back?' I said. 'What's the use of sticking at it? It is evident enough that we have happened on an unlucky day!' "But, in spite of heat and fatigue, Pechorin didn't like to return empty-handed... That is just the kind of man he was; whatever he set his heart on he had to have--evidently, in his childhood, he had been spoiled by an indulgent mother. At last, at midday, we discovered one of those cursed wild boars--Bang! Bang!--No good!--Off it went into the reeds. That was an unlucky day, to be sure!... So, after a short rest, we set off homeward... "We rode in silence, side by side, giving the horses their head. We had almost reached the fortress, and only the brushwood concealed it from view. Suddenly a shot rang out... We glanced at each other, both struck with the selfsame suspicion... We galloped headlong in the direction of the shot, looked, and saw the soldiers clustered together on the rampart and pointing towards a field, along which a rider was flying at full speed, holding something white across his saddle. Grigori Aleksandrovich yelled like any Chechene, whipped his gun from its cover, and gave chase--I after him. "Luckily, thanks to our unsuccessful hunt, our horses were not jaded; they strained under the saddle, and with every moment we drew nearer and nearer... At length I recognised Kazbich, only I could not make out what it was that he was holding in front of him. "Then I drew level with Pechorin and shouted to him: "'It is Kazbich!' "He looked at me, nodded, and struck his horse with his whip. "At last we were within gunshot of Kazbich. Whether it was that his horse was jaded or not so good as ours, I don't know, but, in spite of all his efforts, it did not get along very fast. I fancy at that moment he remembered his Karagyoz! "I looked at Pechorin. He was taking aim as he galloped... "'Don't shoot,' I cried. 'Save the shot! We will catch up with him as it is.' "Oh, these young men! Always taking fire at the wrong moment! The shot rang out and the bullet broke one of the horse's hind legs. It gave a few fiery leaps forward, stumbled, and fell to its knees. Kazbich sprang off, and then we perceived that it was a woman he was holding in his arms--a woman wrapped in a veil. It was Bela--poor Bela! He shouted something to us in his own language and raised his dagger over her... Delay was useless; I fired in my turn, at haphazard. Probably the bullet struck him in the shoulder, because he dropped his hand suddenly. When the smoke cleared off, we could see the wounded horse lying on the ground and Bela beside it; but Kazbich, his gun flung away, was clambering like a cat up the cliff, through the brushwood. I should have liked to have brought him down from there--but I hadn't a charge ready. We jumped off our horses and rushed to Bela. Poor girl! She was lying motionless, and the blood was pouring in streams from her wound. The villain! If he had struck her to the heart--well and good, everything would at least have been finished there and then; but to stab her in the back like that--the scoundrel! She was unconscious. We tore the veil into strips and bound up the wound as tightly as we could. In vain Pechorin kissed her cold lips--it was impossible to bring her to. "Pechorin mounted; I lifted Bela from the ground and somehow managed to place her before him on his saddle; he put his arm round her and we rode back. "'Look here, Maksim Maksimych,' said Grigori Aleksandrovich, after a few moments of silence. 'We will never bring her in alive like this.' "'True!' I said, and we put our horses to a full gallop." CHAPTER XI "A CROWD was awaiting us at the fortress gate. Carefully we carried the wounded girl to Pechorin's quarters, and then we sent for the doctor. The latter was drunk, but he came, examined the wound, and announced that she could not live more than a day. He was mistaken, though." "She recovered?" I asked the staff-captain, seizing him by the arm, and involuntarily rejoicing. "No," he replied, "but the doctor was so far mistaken that she lived two days longer." "Explain, though, how Kazbich made off with her!" "It was like this: in spite of Pechorin's prohibition, she went out of the fortress and down to the river. It was a very hot day, you know, and she sat on a rock and dipped her feet in the water. Up crept Kazbich, pounced upon her, silenced her, and dragged her into the bushes. Then he sprang on his horse and made off. In the meantime she succeeded in crying out, the sentries took the alarm, fired, but wide of the mark; and thereupon we arrived on the scene." "But what did Kazbich want to carry her off for?" "Good gracious! Why, everyone knows these Circassians are a race of thieves; they can't keep their hands off anything that is left lying about! They may not want a thing, but they will steal it, for all that. Still, you mustn't be too hard on them. And, besides, he had been in love with her for a long time." "And Bela died?" "Yes, she died, but she suffered for a long time, and we were fairly knocked up with her, I can tell you. About ten o'clock in the evening she came to herself. We were sitting by her bed. As soon as ever she opened her eyes she began to call Pechorin. "'I am here beside you, my janechka' (that is, 'my darling'), he answered, taking her by the hand. "'I shall die,' she said. "We began to comfort her, telling her that the doctor had promised infallibly to cure her. She shook her little head and turned to the wall--she did not want to die!... "At night she became delirious, her head burned, at times a feverish paroxysm convulsed her whole body. She talked incoherently about her father, her brother; she yearned for the mountains, for her home... Then she spoke of Pechorin also, called him various fond names, or reproached him for having ceased to love his janechka. "He listened to her in silence, his head sunk in his hands; but yet, during the whole time, I did not notice a single tear-drop on his lashes. I do not know whether he was actually unable to weep or was mastering himself; but for my part I have never seen anything more pitiful. "Towards morning the delirium passed off. For an hour or so she lay motionless, pale, and so weak that it was hardly possible to observe that she was breathing. After that she grew better and began to talk: only about what, think you? Such thoughts come only to the dying!... She lamented that she was not a Christian, that in the other world her soul would never meet the soul of Grigori Aleksandrovich, and that in Paradise another woman would be his companion. The thought occurred to me to baptize her before her death. I told her my idea; she looked at me undecidedly, and for a long time was unable to utter a word. Finally she answered that she would die in the faith in which she had been born. A whole day passed thus. What a change that day made in her! Her pale cheeks fell in, her eyes grew ever so large, her lips burned. She felt a consuming heat within her, as though a red-hot blade was piercing her breast. "The second night came on. We did not close our eyes or leave the bedside. She suffered terribly, and groaned; and directly the pain began to abate she endeavoured to assure Grigori Aleksandrovich that she felt better, tried to persuade him to go to bed, kissed his hand and would not let it out of hers. Before the morning she began to feel the death agony and to toss about. She knocked the bandage off, and the blood flowed afresh. When the wound was bound up again she grew quiet for a moment and begged Pechorin to kiss her. He fell on his knees beside the bed, raised her head from the pillow, and pressed his lips to hers--which were growing cold. She threw her trembling arms closely round his neck, as if with that kiss she wished to yield up her soul to him.--No, she did well to die! Why, what would have become of her if Grigori Aleksandrovich had abandoned her? And that is what would have happened, sooner or later. "During half the following day she was calm, silent and docile, however much the doctor tortured her with his fomentations and mixtures. "'Good heavens!' I said to him, 'you know you said yourself that she was certain to die, so what is the good of all these preparations of yours?' "'Even so, it is better to do all this,' he replied, 'so that I may have an easy conscience.' "A pretty conscience, forsooth! "After midday Bela began to suffer from thirst. We opened the windows, but it was hotter outside than in the room; we placed ice round the bed--all to no purpose. I knew that that intolerable thirst was a sign of the approaching end, and I told Pechorin so. "'Water, water!' she said in a hoarse voice, raising herself up from the bed. "Pechorin turned pale as a sheet, seized a glass, filled it, and gave it to her. I covered my eyes with my hands and began to say a prayer--I can't remember what... Yes, my friend, many a time have I seen people die in hospitals or on the field of battle, but this was something altogether different! Still, this one thing grieves me, I must confess: she died without even once calling me to mind. Yet I loved her, I should think, like a father!... Well, God forgive her!... And, to tell the truth, what am I that she should have remembered me when she was dying?... "As soon as she had drunk the water, she grew easier--but in about three minutes she breathed her last! We put a looking-glass to her lips--it was undimmed! "I led Pechorin from the room, and we went on to the fortress rampart. For a long time we walked side by side, to and fro, speaking not a word and with our hands clasped behind our backs. His face expressed nothing out of the common--and that vexed me. Had I been in his place, I should have died of grief. At length he sat down on the ground in the shade and began to draw something in the sand with his stick. More for form's sake than anything, you know, I tried to console him and began to talk. He raised his head and burst into a laugh! At that laugh a cold shudder ran through me... I went away to order a coffin. "I confess it was partly to distract my thoughts that I busied myself in that way. I possessed a little piece of Circassian stuff, and I | reach | How many times the word 'reach' appears in the text? | 2 |
versts in two hours! Meanwhile the clouds had descended, hail and snow fell; the wind, bursting into the ravines, howled and whistled like Nightingale the Robber. [16] Soon the stone cross was hidden in the mist, the billows of which, in ever denser and more compact masses, rushed in from the east... Concerning that stone cross, by the way, there exists the strange, but widespread, tradition that it had been set up by the Emperor Peter the First when travelling through the Caucasus. In the first place, however, the Emperor went no farther than Daghestan; and, in the second place, there is an inscription in large letters on the cross itself, to the effect that it had been erected by order of General Ermolov, and that too in the year 1824. Nevertheless, the tradition has taken such firm root, in spite of the inscription, that really you do not know what to believe; the more so, as it is not the custom to believe inscriptions. To reach the station Kobi, we still had to descend about five versts, across ice-covered rocks and plashy snow. The horses were exhausted; we were freezing; the snowstorm droned with ever-increasing violence, exactly like the storms of our own northern land, only its wild melodies were sadder and more melancholy. "O Exile," I thought, "thou art weeping for thy wide, free steppes! There mayest thou unfold thy cold wings, but here thou art stifled and confined, like an eagle beating his wings, with a shriek, against the grating of his iron cage!" "A bad look out," said the staff-captain. "Look! There's nothing to be seen all round but mist and snow. At any moment we may tumble into an abyss or stick fast in a cleft; and a little lower down, I dare say, the Baidara has risen so high that there is no getting across it. Oh, this Asia, I know it! Like people, like rivers! There's no trusting them at all!" The drivers, shouting and cursing, belaboured the horses, which snorted, resisted obstinately, and refused to budge on any account, notwithstanding the eloquence of the whips. "Your honour," one of the drivers said to me at length, "you see, we will never reach Kobi to-day. Won't you give orders to turn to the left while we can? There is something black yonder on the slope--probably huts. Travellers always stop there in bad weather, sir. They say," he added, pointing to the Ossetes, "that they will lead us there if you will give them a tip." "I know that, my friend, I know that without your telling me," said the staff-captain. "Oh, these beasts! They are delighted to seize any pretext for extorting a tip!" "You must confess, however," I said, "that we should be worse off without them." "Just so, just so," he growled to himself. "I know them well--these guides! They scent out by instinct a chance of taking advantage of people. As if it was impossible to find the way without them!" Accordingly we turned aside to the left, and, somehow or other, after a good deal of trouble, made our way to the wretched shelter, which consisted of two huts built of stone slabs and rubble, surrounded by a wall of the same material. Our ragged hosts received us with alacrity. I learned afterwards that the Government supplies them with money and food upon condition that they put up travellers who are overtaken by storm. CHAPTER VIII "ALL is for the best," I said, sitting down close by the fire. "Now you will finish telling me your story about Bela. I am certain that what you have already told me was not the end of it." "Why are you so certain?" answered the staff-captain, winking and smiling slyly. "Because things don't happen like that. A story with such an unusual beginning must also have an unusual ending." "You have guessed, of course"... "I am very glad to hear it." "It is all very well for you to be glad, but, indeed, it makes me sad when I think of it. Bela was a splendid girl. In the end I grew accustomed to her just as if she had been my own daughter, and she loved me. I must tell you that I have no family. I have had no news of my father and mother for twelve years or so, and, in my earlier days, I never thought of providing myself with a wife--and now, you know, it wouldn't do. So I was glad to have found someone to spoil. She used to sing to us or dance the Lezginka. [17].. And what a dancer she was! I have seen our own ladies in provincial society; and on one occasion, sir, about twenty years ago, I was even in the Nobles' Club at Moscow--but was there a woman to be compared with her? Not one! Grigori Aleksandrovich dressed her up like a doll, petted and pampered her, and it was simply astonishing to see how pretty she grew while she lived with us. The sunburn disappeared from her face and hands, and a rosy colour came into her cheeks... What a merry girl she was! Always making fun of me, the little rogue!... Heaven forgive her!" "And when you told her of her father's death?" "We kept it a secret from her for a long time, until she had grown accustomed to her position; and then, when she was told, she cried for a day or two and forgot all about it. "For four months or so everything went on as well as it possibly could. Grigori Aleksandrovich, as I think I have already mentioned, was passionately fond of hunting; he was always craving to be off into the forest after boars or wild goats--but now it would be as much as he would do to go beyond the fortress rampart. All at once, however, I saw that he was beginning again to have fits of abstraction, walking about his room with his hands clasped behind his back. One day after that, without telling anyone, he set off shooting. During the whole morning he was not to be seen; then the same thing happened another time, and so on--oftener and oftener... "'This looks bad!' I said to myself. 'Something must have come between them!' "One morning I paid them a visit--I can see it all in my mind's eye, as if it was happening now. Bela was sitting on the bed, wearing a black silk jacket, and looking rather pale and so sad that I was alarmed. "'Where is Pechorin?' I asked. "'Hunting.' "'When did he go--to-day?' "'She was silent, as if she found a difficulty in answering. "'No, he has been gone since yesterday,' she said at length, with a heavy sigh. "'Surely nothing has happened to him!' "'Yesterday I thought and thought the whole day,' she answered through her tears; 'I imagined all sorts of misfortunes. At one time I fancied that he had been wounded by a wild boar, at another time, that he had been carried off by a Chechene into the mountains... But, now, I have come to think that he no longer loves me.' "'In truth, my dear girl, you could not have imagined anything worse!' "She burst out crying; then, proudly raising her head, she wiped away the tears and continued: "'If he does not love me, then who prevents him sending me home? I am not putting any constraint on him. But, if things go on like this, I will go away myself--I am not a slave, I am a prince's daughter!'... "I tried to talk her over. "'Listen, Bela. You see it is impossible for him to stop in here with you for ever, as if he was sewn on to your petticoat. He is a young man and fond of hunting. Off he'll go, but you will find that he will come back; and, if you are going to be unhappy, you will soon make him tired of you.' "'True, true!' she said. 'I will be merry.' "And with a burst of laughter, she seized her tambourine, began to sing, dance, and gambol around me. But that did not last long either; she fell upon the bed again and buried her face in her hands. "What could I do with her? You know I have never been accustomed to the society of women. I thought and thought how to cheer her up, but couldn't hit on anything. For some time both of us remained silent... A most unpleasant situation, sir! "At length I said to her: "'Would you like us to go and take a walk on the rampart? The weather is splendid.' "This was in September, and indeed it was a wonderful day, bright and not too hot. The mountains could be seen as clearly as though they were but a hand's-breadth away. We went, and walked in silence to and fro along the rampart of the fortress. At length she sat down on the sward, and I sat beside her. In truth, now, it is funny to think of it all! I used to run after her just like a kind of children's nurse! "Our fortress was situated in a lofty position, and the view from the rampart was superb. On one side, the wide clearing, seamed by a few clefts, was bounded by the forest which stretched out to the very ridge of the mountains. Here and there, on the clearing, villages were to be seen sending forth their smoke, and there were droves of horses roaming about. On the other side flowed a tiny stream, and close to its banks came the dense undergrowth which covered the flinty heights joining the principal chain of the Caucasus. We sat in a corner of the bastion, so that we could see everything on both sides. Suddenly I perceived someone on a grey horse riding out of the forest; nearer and nearer he approached until finally he stopped on the far side of the river, about a hundred fathoms from us, and began to wheel his horse round and round like one possessed. 'Strange!' I thought. "'Look, look, Bela,' I said, 'you've got young eyes--what sort of a horseman is that? Who is it he has come to amuse?'... "'It is Kazbich!' she exclaimed after a glance. "'Ah, the robber! Come to laugh at us, has he?' "I looked closely, and sure enough it was Kazbich, with his swarthy face, and as ragged and dirty as ever. "'It is my father's horse!' said Bela, seizing my arm. "She was trembling like a leaf and her eyes were sparkling. "'Aha!' I said to myself. 'There is robber's blood in your veins still, my dear!' "'Come here,' I said to the sentry. 'Look to your gun and unhorse that gallant for me--and you shall have a silver ruble.' "'Very well, your honour, only he won't keep still.' "'Tell him to!' I said, with a laugh. "'Hey, friend!' cried the sentry, waving his hand. 'Wait a bit. What are you spinning round like a humming-top for?' "Kazbich halted and gave ear to the sentry--probably thinking that we were going to parley with him. Quite the contrary!... My grenadier took aim... Bang!... Missed!... Just as the powder flashed in the pan Kazbich jogged his horse, which gave a bound to one side. He stood up in his stirrups, shouted something in his own language, made a threatening gesture with his whip--and was off. "'Aren't you ashamed of yourself?' I said to the sentry. "'He has gone away to die, your honour,' he answered. 'There's no killing a man of that cursed race at one stroke.' "A quarter of an hour later Pechorin returned from hunting. Bela threw herself on his neck without a single complaint, without a single reproach for his lengthy absence!... Even I was angry with him by this time! "'Good heavens!' I said; 'why, I tell you, Kazbich was here on the other side of the river just a moment ago, and we shot at him. How easily you might have run up against him, you know! These mountaineers are a vindictive race! Do you suppose he does not guess that you gave Azamat some help? And I wager that he recognised Bela to-day! I know he was desperately fond of her a year ago--he told me so himself--and, if he had had any hope of getting together a proper bridegroom's gift, he would certainly have sought her in marriage.' "At this Pechorin became thoughtful. "'Yes,' he answered. 'We must be more cautious--Bela, from this day forth you mustn't walk on the rampart any more.' "In the evening I had a lengthy explanation with him. I was vexed that his feelings towards the poor girl had changed; to say nothing of his spending half the day hunting, his manner towards her had become cold. He rarely caressed her, and she was beginning perceptibly to pine away; her little face was becoming drawn, her large eyes growing dim. "'What are you sighing for, Bela?' I would ask her. 'Are you sad?' "'No!' "'Do you want anything?' "'No!' "'You are pining for your kinsfolk?' "'I have none!' "Sometimes for whole days not a word could be drawn from her but 'Yes' and 'No.' "So I straightway proceeded to talk to Pechorin about her." CHAPTER IX "'LISTEN, Maksim Maksimych,' said Pechorin. 'Mine is an unfortunate disposition; whether it is the result of my upbringing or whether it is innate--I know not. I only know this, that if I am the cause of unhappiness in others I myself am no less unhappy. Of course, that is a poor consolation to them--only the fact remains that such is the case. In my early youth, from the moment I ceased to be under the guardianship of my relations, I began madly to enjoy all the pleasures which money could buy--and, of course, such pleasures became irksome to me. Then I launched out into the world of fashion--and that, too, soon palled upon me. I fell in love with fashionable beauties and was loved by them, but my imagination and egoism alone were aroused; my heart remained empty... I began to read, to study--but sciences also became utterly wearisome to me. I saw that neither fame nor happiness depends on them in the least, because the happiest people are the uneducated, and fame is good fortune, to attain which you have only to be smart. Then I grew bored... Soon afterwards I was transferred to the Caucasus; and that was the happiest time of my life. I hoped that under the bullets of the Chechenes boredom could not exist--a vain hope! In a month I grew so accustomed to the buzzing of the bullets and to the proximity of death that, to tell the truth, I paid more attention to the gnats--and I became more bored than ever, because I had lost what was almost my last hope. When I saw Bela in my own house; when, for the first time, I held her on my knee and kissed her black locks, I, fool that I was, thought that she was an angel sent to me by sympathetic fate... Again I was mistaken; the love of a savage is little better than that of your lady of quality, the barbaric ignorance and simplicity of the one weary you as much as the coquetry of the other. I am not saying that I do not love her still; I am grateful to her for a few fairly sweet moments; I would give my life for her--only I am bored with her... Whether I am a fool or a villain I know not; but this is certain, I am also most deserving of pity--perhaps more than she. My soul has been spoiled by the world, my imagination is unquiet, my heart insatiate. To me everything is of little moment. I become as easily accustomed to grief as to joy, and my life grows emptier day by day. One expedient only is left to me--travel. "'As soon as I can, I shall set off--but not to Europe. Heaven forfend! I shall go to America, to Arabia, to India--perchance I shall die somewhere on the way. At any rate, I am convinced that, thanks to storms and bad roads, that last consolation will not quickly be exhausted!' "For a long time he went on speaking thus, and his words have remained stamped upon my memory, because it was the first time that I had heard such things from a man of five-and-twenty--and Heaven grant it may be the last. Isn't it astonishing? Tell me, please," continued the staff-captain, appealing to me. "You used to live in the Capital, I think, and that not so very long ago. Is it possible that the young men there are all like that?" I replied that there were a good many people who used the same sort of language, that, probably, there might even be some who spoke in all sincerity; that disillusionment, moreover, like all other vogues, having had its beginning in the higher strata of society, had descended to the lower, where it was being worn threadbare, and that, now, those who were really and truly bored strove to conceal their misfortune as if it were a vice. The staff-captain did not understand these subtleties, shook his head, and smiled slyly. "Anyhow, I suppose it was the French who introduced the fashion?" "No, the English." "Aha, there you are!" he answered. "They always have been arrant drunkards, you know!" Involuntarily I recalled to mind a certain lady, living in Moscow, who used to maintain that Byron was nothing more nor less than a drunkard. However, the staff-captain's observation was more excusable; in order to abstain from strong drink, he naturally endeavoured to convince himself that all the misfortunes in the world are the result of drunkenness. CHAPTER X MEANWHILE the staff-captain continued his story. "Kazbich never put in an appearance again; but somehow--I don't know why--I could not get the idea out of my head that he had had a reason for coming, and that some mischievous scheme was in his mind. "Well, one day Pechorin tried to persuade me to go boar-hunting with him. For a long time I refused. What novelty was a wild boar to me? "However, off he dragged me, all the same. We took four or five soldiers and set out early in the morning. Up till ten o'clock we scurried about the reeds and the forest--there wasn't a wild beast to be found! "'I say, oughtn't we to be going back?' I said. 'What's the use of sticking at it? It is evident enough that we have happened on an unlucky day!' "But, in spite of heat and fatigue, Pechorin didn't like to return empty-handed... That is just the kind of man he was; whatever he set his heart on he had to have--evidently, in his childhood, he had been spoiled by an indulgent mother. At last, at midday, we discovered one of those cursed wild boars--Bang! Bang!--No good!--Off it went into the reeds. That was an unlucky day, to be sure!... So, after a short rest, we set off homeward... "We rode in silence, side by side, giving the horses their head. We had almost reached the fortress, and only the brushwood concealed it from view. Suddenly a shot rang out... We glanced at each other, both struck with the selfsame suspicion... We galloped headlong in the direction of the shot, looked, and saw the soldiers clustered together on the rampart and pointing towards a field, along which a rider was flying at full speed, holding something white across his saddle. Grigori Aleksandrovich yelled like any Chechene, whipped his gun from its cover, and gave chase--I after him. "Luckily, thanks to our unsuccessful hunt, our horses were not jaded; they strained under the saddle, and with every moment we drew nearer and nearer... At length I recognised Kazbich, only I could not make out what it was that he was holding in front of him. "Then I drew level with Pechorin and shouted to him: "'It is Kazbich!' "He looked at me, nodded, and struck his horse with his whip. "At last we were within gunshot of Kazbich. Whether it was that his horse was jaded or not so good as ours, I don't know, but, in spite of all his efforts, it did not get along very fast. I fancy at that moment he remembered his Karagyoz! "I looked at Pechorin. He was taking aim as he galloped... "'Don't shoot,' I cried. 'Save the shot! We will catch up with him as it is.' "Oh, these young men! Always taking fire at the wrong moment! The shot rang out and the bullet broke one of the horse's hind legs. It gave a few fiery leaps forward, stumbled, and fell to its knees. Kazbich sprang off, and then we perceived that it was a woman he was holding in his arms--a woman wrapped in a veil. It was Bela--poor Bela! He shouted something to us in his own language and raised his dagger over her... Delay was useless; I fired in my turn, at haphazard. Probably the bullet struck him in the shoulder, because he dropped his hand suddenly. When the smoke cleared off, we could see the wounded horse lying on the ground and Bela beside it; but Kazbich, his gun flung away, was clambering like a cat up the cliff, through the brushwood. I should have liked to have brought him down from there--but I hadn't a charge ready. We jumped off our horses and rushed to Bela. Poor girl! She was lying motionless, and the blood was pouring in streams from her wound. The villain! If he had struck her to the heart--well and good, everything would at least have been finished there and then; but to stab her in the back like that--the scoundrel! She was unconscious. We tore the veil into strips and bound up the wound as tightly as we could. In vain Pechorin kissed her cold lips--it was impossible to bring her to. "Pechorin mounted; I lifted Bela from the ground and somehow managed to place her before him on his saddle; he put his arm round her and we rode back. "'Look here, Maksim Maksimych,' said Grigori Aleksandrovich, after a few moments of silence. 'We will never bring her in alive like this.' "'True!' I said, and we put our horses to a full gallop." CHAPTER XI "A CROWD was awaiting us at the fortress gate. Carefully we carried the wounded girl to Pechorin's quarters, and then we sent for the doctor. The latter was drunk, but he came, examined the wound, and announced that she could not live more than a day. He was mistaken, though." "She recovered?" I asked the staff-captain, seizing him by the arm, and involuntarily rejoicing. "No," he replied, "but the doctor was so far mistaken that she lived two days longer." "Explain, though, how Kazbich made off with her!" "It was like this: in spite of Pechorin's prohibition, she went out of the fortress and down to the river. It was a very hot day, you know, and she sat on a rock and dipped her feet in the water. Up crept Kazbich, pounced upon her, silenced her, and dragged her into the bushes. Then he sprang on his horse and made off. In the meantime she succeeded in crying out, the sentries took the alarm, fired, but wide of the mark; and thereupon we arrived on the scene." "But what did Kazbich want to carry her off for?" "Good gracious! Why, everyone knows these Circassians are a race of thieves; they can't keep their hands off anything that is left lying about! They may not want a thing, but they will steal it, for all that. Still, you mustn't be too hard on them. And, besides, he had been in love with her for a long time." "And Bela died?" "Yes, she died, but she suffered for a long time, and we were fairly knocked up with her, I can tell you. About ten o'clock in the evening she came to herself. We were sitting by her bed. As soon as ever she opened her eyes she began to call Pechorin. "'I am here beside you, my janechka' (that is, 'my darling'), he answered, taking her by the hand. "'I shall die,' she said. "We began to comfort her, telling her that the doctor had promised infallibly to cure her. She shook her little head and turned to the wall--she did not want to die!... "At night she became delirious, her head burned, at times a feverish paroxysm convulsed her whole body. She talked incoherently about her father, her brother; she yearned for the mountains, for her home... Then she spoke of Pechorin also, called him various fond names, or reproached him for having ceased to love his janechka. "He listened to her in silence, his head sunk in his hands; but yet, during the whole time, I did not notice a single tear-drop on his lashes. I do not know whether he was actually unable to weep or was mastering himself; but for my part I have never seen anything more pitiful. "Towards morning the delirium passed off. For an hour or so she lay motionless, pale, and so weak that it was hardly possible to observe that she was breathing. After that she grew better and began to talk: only about what, think you? Such thoughts come only to the dying!... She lamented that she was not a Christian, that in the other world her soul would never meet the soul of Grigori Aleksandrovich, and that in Paradise another woman would be his companion. The thought occurred to me to baptize her before her death. I told her my idea; she looked at me undecidedly, and for a long time was unable to utter a word. Finally she answered that she would die in the faith in which she had been born. A whole day passed thus. What a change that day made in her! Her pale cheeks fell in, her eyes grew ever so large, her lips burned. She felt a consuming heat within her, as though a red-hot blade was piercing her breast. "The second night came on. We did not close our eyes or leave the bedside. She suffered terribly, and groaned; and directly the pain began to abate she endeavoured to assure Grigori Aleksandrovich that she felt better, tried to persuade him to go to bed, kissed his hand and would not let it out of hers. Before the morning she began to feel the death agony and to toss about. She knocked the bandage off, and the blood flowed afresh. When the wound was bound up again she grew quiet for a moment and begged Pechorin to kiss her. He fell on his knees beside the bed, raised her head from the pillow, and pressed his lips to hers--which were growing cold. She threw her trembling arms closely round his neck, as if with that kiss she wished to yield up her soul to him.--No, she did well to die! Why, what would have become of her if Grigori Aleksandrovich had abandoned her? And that is what would have happened, sooner or later. "During half the following day she was calm, silent and docile, however much the doctor tortured her with his fomentations and mixtures. "'Good heavens!' I said to him, 'you know you said yourself that she was certain to die, so what is the good of all these preparations of yours?' "'Even so, it is better to do all this,' he replied, 'so that I may have an easy conscience.' "A pretty conscience, forsooth! "After midday Bela began to suffer from thirst. We opened the windows, but it was hotter outside than in the room; we placed ice round the bed--all to no purpose. I knew that that intolerable thirst was a sign of the approaching end, and I told Pechorin so. "'Water, water!' she said in a hoarse voice, raising herself up from the bed. "Pechorin turned pale as a sheet, seized a glass, filled it, and gave it to her. I covered my eyes with my hands and began to say a prayer--I can't remember what... Yes, my friend, many a time have I seen people die in hospitals or on the field of battle, but this was something altogether different! Still, this one thing grieves me, I must confess: she died without even once calling me to mind. Yet I loved her, I should think, like a father!... Well, God forgive her!... And, to tell the truth, what am I that she should have remembered me when she was dying?... "As soon as she had drunk the water, she grew easier--but in about three minutes she breathed her last! We put a looking-glass to her lips--it was undimmed! "I led Pechorin from the room, and we went on to the fortress rampart. For a long time we walked side by side, to and fro, speaking not a word and with our hands clasped behind our backs. His face expressed nothing out of the common--and that vexed me. Had I been in his place, I should have died of grief. At length he sat down on the ground in the shade and began to draw something in the sand with his stick. More for form's sake than anything, you know, I tried to console him and began to talk. He raised his head and burst into a laugh! At that laugh a cold shudder ran through me... I went away to order a coffin. "I confess it was partly to distract my thoughts that I busied myself in that way. I possessed a little piece of Circassian stuff, and I | pitiless | How many times the word 'pitiless' appears in the text? | 0 |
versts in two hours! Meanwhile the clouds had descended, hail and snow fell; the wind, bursting into the ravines, howled and whistled like Nightingale the Robber. [16] Soon the stone cross was hidden in the mist, the billows of which, in ever denser and more compact masses, rushed in from the east... Concerning that stone cross, by the way, there exists the strange, but widespread, tradition that it had been set up by the Emperor Peter the First when travelling through the Caucasus. In the first place, however, the Emperor went no farther than Daghestan; and, in the second place, there is an inscription in large letters on the cross itself, to the effect that it had been erected by order of General Ermolov, and that too in the year 1824. Nevertheless, the tradition has taken such firm root, in spite of the inscription, that really you do not know what to believe; the more so, as it is not the custom to believe inscriptions. To reach the station Kobi, we still had to descend about five versts, across ice-covered rocks and plashy snow. The horses were exhausted; we were freezing; the snowstorm droned with ever-increasing violence, exactly like the storms of our own northern land, only its wild melodies were sadder and more melancholy. "O Exile," I thought, "thou art weeping for thy wide, free steppes! There mayest thou unfold thy cold wings, but here thou art stifled and confined, like an eagle beating his wings, with a shriek, against the grating of his iron cage!" "A bad look out," said the staff-captain. "Look! There's nothing to be seen all round but mist and snow. At any moment we may tumble into an abyss or stick fast in a cleft; and a little lower down, I dare say, the Baidara has risen so high that there is no getting across it. Oh, this Asia, I know it! Like people, like rivers! There's no trusting them at all!" The drivers, shouting and cursing, belaboured the horses, which snorted, resisted obstinately, and refused to budge on any account, notwithstanding the eloquence of the whips. "Your honour," one of the drivers said to me at length, "you see, we will never reach Kobi to-day. Won't you give orders to turn to the left while we can? There is something black yonder on the slope--probably huts. Travellers always stop there in bad weather, sir. They say," he added, pointing to the Ossetes, "that they will lead us there if you will give them a tip." "I know that, my friend, I know that without your telling me," said the staff-captain. "Oh, these beasts! They are delighted to seize any pretext for extorting a tip!" "You must confess, however," I said, "that we should be worse off without them." "Just so, just so," he growled to himself. "I know them well--these guides! They scent out by instinct a chance of taking advantage of people. As if it was impossible to find the way without them!" Accordingly we turned aside to the left, and, somehow or other, after a good deal of trouble, made our way to the wretched shelter, which consisted of two huts built of stone slabs and rubble, surrounded by a wall of the same material. Our ragged hosts received us with alacrity. I learned afterwards that the Government supplies them with money and food upon condition that they put up travellers who are overtaken by storm. CHAPTER VIII "ALL is for the best," I said, sitting down close by the fire. "Now you will finish telling me your story about Bela. I am certain that what you have already told me was not the end of it." "Why are you so certain?" answered the staff-captain, winking and smiling slyly. "Because things don't happen like that. A story with such an unusual beginning must also have an unusual ending." "You have guessed, of course"... "I am very glad to hear it." "It is all very well for you to be glad, but, indeed, it makes me sad when I think of it. Bela was a splendid girl. In the end I grew accustomed to her just as if she had been my own daughter, and she loved me. I must tell you that I have no family. I have had no news of my father and mother for twelve years or so, and, in my earlier days, I never thought of providing myself with a wife--and now, you know, it wouldn't do. So I was glad to have found someone to spoil. She used to sing to us or dance the Lezginka. [17].. And what a dancer she was! I have seen our own ladies in provincial society; and on one occasion, sir, about twenty years ago, I was even in the Nobles' Club at Moscow--but was there a woman to be compared with her? Not one! Grigori Aleksandrovich dressed her up like a doll, petted and pampered her, and it was simply astonishing to see how pretty she grew while she lived with us. The sunburn disappeared from her face and hands, and a rosy colour came into her cheeks... What a merry girl she was! Always making fun of me, the little rogue!... Heaven forgive her!" "And when you told her of her father's death?" "We kept it a secret from her for a long time, until she had grown accustomed to her position; and then, when she was told, she cried for a day or two and forgot all about it. "For four months or so everything went on as well as it possibly could. Grigori Aleksandrovich, as I think I have already mentioned, was passionately fond of hunting; he was always craving to be off into the forest after boars or wild goats--but now it would be as much as he would do to go beyond the fortress rampart. All at once, however, I saw that he was beginning again to have fits of abstraction, walking about his room with his hands clasped behind his back. One day after that, without telling anyone, he set off shooting. During the whole morning he was not to be seen; then the same thing happened another time, and so on--oftener and oftener... "'This looks bad!' I said to myself. 'Something must have come between them!' "One morning I paid them a visit--I can see it all in my mind's eye, as if it was happening now. Bela was sitting on the bed, wearing a black silk jacket, and looking rather pale and so sad that I was alarmed. "'Where is Pechorin?' I asked. "'Hunting.' "'When did he go--to-day?' "'She was silent, as if she found a difficulty in answering. "'No, he has been gone since yesterday,' she said at length, with a heavy sigh. "'Surely nothing has happened to him!' "'Yesterday I thought and thought the whole day,' she answered through her tears; 'I imagined all sorts of misfortunes. At one time I fancied that he had been wounded by a wild boar, at another time, that he had been carried off by a Chechene into the mountains... But, now, I have come to think that he no longer loves me.' "'In truth, my dear girl, you could not have imagined anything worse!' "She burst out crying; then, proudly raising her head, she wiped away the tears and continued: "'If he does not love me, then who prevents him sending me home? I am not putting any constraint on him. But, if things go on like this, I will go away myself--I am not a slave, I am a prince's daughter!'... "I tried to talk her over. "'Listen, Bela. You see it is impossible for him to stop in here with you for ever, as if he was sewn on to your petticoat. He is a young man and fond of hunting. Off he'll go, but you will find that he will come back; and, if you are going to be unhappy, you will soon make him tired of you.' "'True, true!' she said. 'I will be merry.' "And with a burst of laughter, she seized her tambourine, began to sing, dance, and gambol around me. But that did not last long either; she fell upon the bed again and buried her face in her hands. "What could I do with her? You know I have never been accustomed to the society of women. I thought and thought how to cheer her up, but couldn't hit on anything. For some time both of us remained silent... A most unpleasant situation, sir! "At length I said to her: "'Would you like us to go and take a walk on the rampart? The weather is splendid.' "This was in September, and indeed it was a wonderful day, bright and not too hot. The mountains could be seen as clearly as though they were but a hand's-breadth away. We went, and walked in silence to and fro along the rampart of the fortress. At length she sat down on the sward, and I sat beside her. In truth, now, it is funny to think of it all! I used to run after her just like a kind of children's nurse! "Our fortress was situated in a lofty position, and the view from the rampart was superb. On one side, the wide clearing, seamed by a few clefts, was bounded by the forest which stretched out to the very ridge of the mountains. Here and there, on the clearing, villages were to be seen sending forth their smoke, and there were droves of horses roaming about. On the other side flowed a tiny stream, and close to its banks came the dense undergrowth which covered the flinty heights joining the principal chain of the Caucasus. We sat in a corner of the bastion, so that we could see everything on both sides. Suddenly I perceived someone on a grey horse riding out of the forest; nearer and nearer he approached until finally he stopped on the far side of the river, about a hundred fathoms from us, and began to wheel his horse round and round like one possessed. 'Strange!' I thought. "'Look, look, Bela,' I said, 'you've got young eyes--what sort of a horseman is that? Who is it he has come to amuse?'... "'It is Kazbich!' she exclaimed after a glance. "'Ah, the robber! Come to laugh at us, has he?' "I looked closely, and sure enough it was Kazbich, with his swarthy face, and as ragged and dirty as ever. "'It is my father's horse!' said Bela, seizing my arm. "She was trembling like a leaf and her eyes were sparkling. "'Aha!' I said to myself. 'There is robber's blood in your veins still, my dear!' "'Come here,' I said to the sentry. 'Look to your gun and unhorse that gallant for me--and you shall have a silver ruble.' "'Very well, your honour, only he won't keep still.' "'Tell him to!' I said, with a laugh. "'Hey, friend!' cried the sentry, waving his hand. 'Wait a bit. What are you spinning round like a humming-top for?' "Kazbich halted and gave ear to the sentry--probably thinking that we were going to parley with him. Quite the contrary!... My grenadier took aim... Bang!... Missed!... Just as the powder flashed in the pan Kazbich jogged his horse, which gave a bound to one side. He stood up in his stirrups, shouted something in his own language, made a threatening gesture with his whip--and was off. "'Aren't you ashamed of yourself?' I said to the sentry. "'He has gone away to die, your honour,' he answered. 'There's no killing a man of that cursed race at one stroke.' "A quarter of an hour later Pechorin returned from hunting. Bela threw herself on his neck without a single complaint, without a single reproach for his lengthy absence!... Even I was angry with him by this time! "'Good heavens!' I said; 'why, I tell you, Kazbich was here on the other side of the river just a moment ago, and we shot at him. How easily you might have run up against him, you know! These mountaineers are a vindictive race! Do you suppose he does not guess that you gave Azamat some help? And I wager that he recognised Bela to-day! I know he was desperately fond of her a year ago--he told me so himself--and, if he had had any hope of getting together a proper bridegroom's gift, he would certainly have sought her in marriage.' "At this Pechorin became thoughtful. "'Yes,' he answered. 'We must be more cautious--Bela, from this day forth you mustn't walk on the rampart any more.' "In the evening I had a lengthy explanation with him. I was vexed that his feelings towards the poor girl had changed; to say nothing of his spending half the day hunting, his manner towards her had become cold. He rarely caressed her, and she was beginning perceptibly to pine away; her little face was becoming drawn, her large eyes growing dim. "'What are you sighing for, Bela?' I would ask her. 'Are you sad?' "'No!' "'Do you want anything?' "'No!' "'You are pining for your kinsfolk?' "'I have none!' "Sometimes for whole days not a word could be drawn from her but 'Yes' and 'No.' "So I straightway proceeded to talk to Pechorin about her." CHAPTER IX "'LISTEN, Maksim Maksimych,' said Pechorin. 'Mine is an unfortunate disposition; whether it is the result of my upbringing or whether it is innate--I know not. I only know this, that if I am the cause of unhappiness in others I myself am no less unhappy. Of course, that is a poor consolation to them--only the fact remains that such is the case. In my early youth, from the moment I ceased to be under the guardianship of my relations, I began madly to enjoy all the pleasures which money could buy--and, of course, such pleasures became irksome to me. Then I launched out into the world of fashion--and that, too, soon palled upon me. I fell in love with fashionable beauties and was loved by them, but my imagination and egoism alone were aroused; my heart remained empty... I began to read, to study--but sciences also became utterly wearisome to me. I saw that neither fame nor happiness depends on them in the least, because the happiest people are the uneducated, and fame is good fortune, to attain which you have only to be smart. Then I grew bored... Soon afterwards I was transferred to the Caucasus; and that was the happiest time of my life. I hoped that under the bullets of the Chechenes boredom could not exist--a vain hope! In a month I grew so accustomed to the buzzing of the bullets and to the proximity of death that, to tell the truth, I paid more attention to the gnats--and I became more bored than ever, because I had lost what was almost my last hope. When I saw Bela in my own house; when, for the first time, I held her on my knee and kissed her black locks, I, fool that I was, thought that she was an angel sent to me by sympathetic fate... Again I was mistaken; the love of a savage is little better than that of your lady of quality, the barbaric ignorance and simplicity of the one weary you as much as the coquetry of the other. I am not saying that I do not love her still; I am grateful to her for a few fairly sweet moments; I would give my life for her--only I am bored with her... Whether I am a fool or a villain I know not; but this is certain, I am also most deserving of pity--perhaps more than she. My soul has been spoiled by the world, my imagination is unquiet, my heart insatiate. To me everything is of little moment. I become as easily accustomed to grief as to joy, and my life grows emptier day by day. One expedient only is left to me--travel. "'As soon as I can, I shall set off--but not to Europe. Heaven forfend! I shall go to America, to Arabia, to India--perchance I shall die somewhere on the way. At any rate, I am convinced that, thanks to storms and bad roads, that last consolation will not quickly be exhausted!' "For a long time he went on speaking thus, and his words have remained stamped upon my memory, because it was the first time that I had heard such things from a man of five-and-twenty--and Heaven grant it may be the last. Isn't it astonishing? Tell me, please," continued the staff-captain, appealing to me. "You used to live in the Capital, I think, and that not so very long ago. Is it possible that the young men there are all like that?" I replied that there were a good many people who used the same sort of language, that, probably, there might even be some who spoke in all sincerity; that disillusionment, moreover, like all other vogues, having had its beginning in the higher strata of society, had descended to the lower, where it was being worn threadbare, and that, now, those who were really and truly bored strove to conceal their misfortune as if it were a vice. The staff-captain did not understand these subtleties, shook his head, and smiled slyly. "Anyhow, I suppose it was the French who introduced the fashion?" "No, the English." "Aha, there you are!" he answered. "They always have been arrant drunkards, you know!" Involuntarily I recalled to mind a certain lady, living in Moscow, who used to maintain that Byron was nothing more nor less than a drunkard. However, the staff-captain's observation was more excusable; in order to abstain from strong drink, he naturally endeavoured to convince himself that all the misfortunes in the world are the result of drunkenness. CHAPTER X MEANWHILE the staff-captain continued his story. "Kazbich never put in an appearance again; but somehow--I don't know why--I could not get the idea out of my head that he had had a reason for coming, and that some mischievous scheme was in his mind. "Well, one day Pechorin tried to persuade me to go boar-hunting with him. For a long time I refused. What novelty was a wild boar to me? "However, off he dragged me, all the same. We took four or five soldiers and set out early in the morning. Up till ten o'clock we scurried about the reeds and the forest--there wasn't a wild beast to be found! "'I say, oughtn't we to be going back?' I said. 'What's the use of sticking at it? It is evident enough that we have happened on an unlucky day!' "But, in spite of heat and fatigue, Pechorin didn't like to return empty-handed... That is just the kind of man he was; whatever he set his heart on he had to have--evidently, in his childhood, he had been spoiled by an indulgent mother. At last, at midday, we discovered one of those cursed wild boars--Bang! Bang!--No good!--Off it went into the reeds. That was an unlucky day, to be sure!... So, after a short rest, we set off homeward... "We rode in silence, side by side, giving the horses their head. We had almost reached the fortress, and only the brushwood concealed it from view. Suddenly a shot rang out... We glanced at each other, both struck with the selfsame suspicion... We galloped headlong in the direction of the shot, looked, and saw the soldiers clustered together on the rampart and pointing towards a field, along which a rider was flying at full speed, holding something white across his saddle. Grigori Aleksandrovich yelled like any Chechene, whipped his gun from its cover, and gave chase--I after him. "Luckily, thanks to our unsuccessful hunt, our horses were not jaded; they strained under the saddle, and with every moment we drew nearer and nearer... At length I recognised Kazbich, only I could not make out what it was that he was holding in front of him. "Then I drew level with Pechorin and shouted to him: "'It is Kazbich!' "He looked at me, nodded, and struck his horse with his whip. "At last we were within gunshot of Kazbich. Whether it was that his horse was jaded or not so good as ours, I don't know, but, in spite of all his efforts, it did not get along very fast. I fancy at that moment he remembered his Karagyoz! "I looked at Pechorin. He was taking aim as he galloped... "'Don't shoot,' I cried. 'Save the shot! We will catch up with him as it is.' "Oh, these young men! Always taking fire at the wrong moment! The shot rang out and the bullet broke one of the horse's hind legs. It gave a few fiery leaps forward, stumbled, and fell to its knees. Kazbich sprang off, and then we perceived that it was a woman he was holding in his arms--a woman wrapped in a veil. It was Bela--poor Bela! He shouted something to us in his own language and raised his dagger over her... Delay was useless; I fired in my turn, at haphazard. Probably the bullet struck him in the shoulder, because he dropped his hand suddenly. When the smoke cleared off, we could see the wounded horse lying on the ground and Bela beside it; but Kazbich, his gun flung away, was clambering like a cat up the cliff, through the brushwood. I should have liked to have brought him down from there--but I hadn't a charge ready. We jumped off our horses and rushed to Bela. Poor girl! She was lying motionless, and the blood was pouring in streams from her wound. The villain! If he had struck her to the heart--well and good, everything would at least have been finished there and then; but to stab her in the back like that--the scoundrel! She was unconscious. We tore the veil into strips and bound up the wound as tightly as we could. In vain Pechorin kissed her cold lips--it was impossible to bring her to. "Pechorin mounted; I lifted Bela from the ground and somehow managed to place her before him on his saddle; he put his arm round her and we rode back. "'Look here, Maksim Maksimych,' said Grigori Aleksandrovich, after a few moments of silence. 'We will never bring her in alive like this.' "'True!' I said, and we put our horses to a full gallop." CHAPTER XI "A CROWD was awaiting us at the fortress gate. Carefully we carried the wounded girl to Pechorin's quarters, and then we sent for the doctor. The latter was drunk, but he came, examined the wound, and announced that she could not live more than a day. He was mistaken, though." "She recovered?" I asked the staff-captain, seizing him by the arm, and involuntarily rejoicing. "No," he replied, "but the doctor was so far mistaken that she lived two days longer." "Explain, though, how Kazbich made off with her!" "It was like this: in spite of Pechorin's prohibition, she went out of the fortress and down to the river. It was a very hot day, you know, and she sat on a rock and dipped her feet in the water. Up crept Kazbich, pounced upon her, silenced her, and dragged her into the bushes. Then he sprang on his horse and made off. In the meantime she succeeded in crying out, the sentries took the alarm, fired, but wide of the mark; and thereupon we arrived on the scene." "But what did Kazbich want to carry her off for?" "Good gracious! Why, everyone knows these Circassians are a race of thieves; they can't keep their hands off anything that is left lying about! They may not want a thing, but they will steal it, for all that. Still, you mustn't be too hard on them. And, besides, he had been in love with her for a long time." "And Bela died?" "Yes, she died, but she suffered for a long time, and we were fairly knocked up with her, I can tell you. About ten o'clock in the evening she came to herself. We were sitting by her bed. As soon as ever she opened her eyes she began to call Pechorin. "'I am here beside you, my janechka' (that is, 'my darling'), he answered, taking her by the hand. "'I shall die,' she said. "We began to comfort her, telling her that the doctor had promised infallibly to cure her. She shook her little head and turned to the wall--she did not want to die!... "At night she became delirious, her head burned, at times a feverish paroxysm convulsed her whole body. She talked incoherently about her father, her brother; she yearned for the mountains, for her home... Then she spoke of Pechorin also, called him various fond names, or reproached him for having ceased to love his janechka. "He listened to her in silence, his head sunk in his hands; but yet, during the whole time, I did not notice a single tear-drop on his lashes. I do not know whether he was actually unable to weep or was mastering himself; but for my part I have never seen anything more pitiful. "Towards morning the delirium passed off. For an hour or so she lay motionless, pale, and so weak that it was hardly possible to observe that she was breathing. After that she grew better and began to talk: only about what, think you? Such thoughts come only to the dying!... She lamented that she was not a Christian, that in the other world her soul would never meet the soul of Grigori Aleksandrovich, and that in Paradise another woman would be his companion. The thought occurred to me to baptize her before her death. I told her my idea; she looked at me undecidedly, and for a long time was unable to utter a word. Finally she answered that she would die in the faith in which she had been born. A whole day passed thus. What a change that day made in her! Her pale cheeks fell in, her eyes grew ever so large, her lips burned. She felt a consuming heat within her, as though a red-hot blade was piercing her breast. "The second night came on. We did not close our eyes or leave the bedside. She suffered terribly, and groaned; and directly the pain began to abate she endeavoured to assure Grigori Aleksandrovich that she felt better, tried to persuade him to go to bed, kissed his hand and would not let it out of hers. Before the morning she began to feel the death agony and to toss about. She knocked the bandage off, and the blood flowed afresh. When the wound was bound up again she grew quiet for a moment and begged Pechorin to kiss her. He fell on his knees beside the bed, raised her head from the pillow, and pressed his lips to hers--which were growing cold. She threw her trembling arms closely round his neck, as if with that kiss she wished to yield up her soul to him.--No, she did well to die! Why, what would have become of her if Grigori Aleksandrovich had abandoned her? And that is what would have happened, sooner or later. "During half the following day she was calm, silent and docile, however much the doctor tortured her with his fomentations and mixtures. "'Good heavens!' I said to him, 'you know you said yourself that she was certain to die, so what is the good of all these preparations of yours?' "'Even so, it is better to do all this,' he replied, 'so that I may have an easy conscience.' "A pretty conscience, forsooth! "After midday Bela began to suffer from thirst. We opened the windows, but it was hotter outside than in the room; we placed ice round the bed--all to no purpose. I knew that that intolerable thirst was a sign of the approaching end, and I told Pechorin so. "'Water, water!' she said in a hoarse voice, raising herself up from the bed. "Pechorin turned pale as a sheet, seized a glass, filled it, and gave it to her. I covered my eyes with my hands and began to say a prayer--I can't remember what... Yes, my friend, many a time have I seen people die in hospitals or on the field of battle, but this was something altogether different! Still, this one thing grieves me, I must confess: she died without even once calling me to mind. Yet I loved her, I should think, like a father!... Well, God forgive her!... And, to tell the truth, what am I that she should have remembered me when she was dying?... "As soon as she had drunk the water, she grew easier--but in about three minutes she breathed her last! We put a looking-glass to her lips--it was undimmed! "I led Pechorin from the room, and we went on to the fortress rampart. For a long time we walked side by side, to and fro, speaking not a word and with our hands clasped behind our backs. His face expressed nothing out of the common--and that vexed me. Had I been in his place, I should have died of grief. At length he sat down on the ground in the shade and began to draw something in the sand with his stick. More for form's sake than anything, you know, I tried to console him and began to talk. He raised his head and burst into a laugh! At that laugh a cold shudder ran through me... I went away to order a coffin. "I confess it was partly to distract my thoughts that I busied myself in that way. I possessed a little piece of Circassian stuff, and I | unpleasant | How many times the word 'unpleasant' appears in the text? | 1 |
versts in two hours! Meanwhile the clouds had descended, hail and snow fell; the wind, bursting into the ravines, howled and whistled like Nightingale the Robber. [16] Soon the stone cross was hidden in the mist, the billows of which, in ever denser and more compact masses, rushed in from the east... Concerning that stone cross, by the way, there exists the strange, but widespread, tradition that it had been set up by the Emperor Peter the First when travelling through the Caucasus. In the first place, however, the Emperor went no farther than Daghestan; and, in the second place, there is an inscription in large letters on the cross itself, to the effect that it had been erected by order of General Ermolov, and that too in the year 1824. Nevertheless, the tradition has taken such firm root, in spite of the inscription, that really you do not know what to believe; the more so, as it is not the custom to believe inscriptions. To reach the station Kobi, we still had to descend about five versts, across ice-covered rocks and plashy snow. The horses were exhausted; we were freezing; the snowstorm droned with ever-increasing violence, exactly like the storms of our own northern land, only its wild melodies were sadder and more melancholy. "O Exile," I thought, "thou art weeping for thy wide, free steppes! There mayest thou unfold thy cold wings, but here thou art stifled and confined, like an eagle beating his wings, with a shriek, against the grating of his iron cage!" "A bad look out," said the staff-captain. "Look! There's nothing to be seen all round but mist and snow. At any moment we may tumble into an abyss or stick fast in a cleft; and a little lower down, I dare say, the Baidara has risen so high that there is no getting across it. Oh, this Asia, I know it! Like people, like rivers! There's no trusting them at all!" The drivers, shouting and cursing, belaboured the horses, which snorted, resisted obstinately, and refused to budge on any account, notwithstanding the eloquence of the whips. "Your honour," one of the drivers said to me at length, "you see, we will never reach Kobi to-day. Won't you give orders to turn to the left while we can? There is something black yonder on the slope--probably huts. Travellers always stop there in bad weather, sir. They say," he added, pointing to the Ossetes, "that they will lead us there if you will give them a tip." "I know that, my friend, I know that without your telling me," said the staff-captain. "Oh, these beasts! They are delighted to seize any pretext for extorting a tip!" "You must confess, however," I said, "that we should be worse off without them." "Just so, just so," he growled to himself. "I know them well--these guides! They scent out by instinct a chance of taking advantage of people. As if it was impossible to find the way without them!" Accordingly we turned aside to the left, and, somehow or other, after a good deal of trouble, made our way to the wretched shelter, which consisted of two huts built of stone slabs and rubble, surrounded by a wall of the same material. Our ragged hosts received us with alacrity. I learned afterwards that the Government supplies them with money and food upon condition that they put up travellers who are overtaken by storm. CHAPTER VIII "ALL is for the best," I said, sitting down close by the fire. "Now you will finish telling me your story about Bela. I am certain that what you have already told me was not the end of it." "Why are you so certain?" answered the staff-captain, winking and smiling slyly. "Because things don't happen like that. A story with such an unusual beginning must also have an unusual ending." "You have guessed, of course"... "I am very glad to hear it." "It is all very well for you to be glad, but, indeed, it makes me sad when I think of it. Bela was a splendid girl. In the end I grew accustomed to her just as if she had been my own daughter, and she loved me. I must tell you that I have no family. I have had no news of my father and mother for twelve years or so, and, in my earlier days, I never thought of providing myself with a wife--and now, you know, it wouldn't do. So I was glad to have found someone to spoil. She used to sing to us or dance the Lezginka. [17].. And what a dancer she was! I have seen our own ladies in provincial society; and on one occasion, sir, about twenty years ago, I was even in the Nobles' Club at Moscow--but was there a woman to be compared with her? Not one! Grigori Aleksandrovich dressed her up like a doll, petted and pampered her, and it was simply astonishing to see how pretty she grew while she lived with us. The sunburn disappeared from her face and hands, and a rosy colour came into her cheeks... What a merry girl she was! Always making fun of me, the little rogue!... Heaven forgive her!" "And when you told her of her father's death?" "We kept it a secret from her for a long time, until she had grown accustomed to her position; and then, when she was told, she cried for a day or two and forgot all about it. "For four months or so everything went on as well as it possibly could. Grigori Aleksandrovich, as I think I have already mentioned, was passionately fond of hunting; he was always craving to be off into the forest after boars or wild goats--but now it would be as much as he would do to go beyond the fortress rampart. All at once, however, I saw that he was beginning again to have fits of abstraction, walking about his room with his hands clasped behind his back. One day after that, without telling anyone, he set off shooting. During the whole morning he was not to be seen; then the same thing happened another time, and so on--oftener and oftener... "'This looks bad!' I said to myself. 'Something must have come between them!' "One morning I paid them a visit--I can see it all in my mind's eye, as if it was happening now. Bela was sitting on the bed, wearing a black silk jacket, and looking rather pale and so sad that I was alarmed. "'Where is Pechorin?' I asked. "'Hunting.' "'When did he go--to-day?' "'She was silent, as if she found a difficulty in answering. "'No, he has been gone since yesterday,' she said at length, with a heavy sigh. "'Surely nothing has happened to him!' "'Yesterday I thought and thought the whole day,' she answered through her tears; 'I imagined all sorts of misfortunes. At one time I fancied that he had been wounded by a wild boar, at another time, that he had been carried off by a Chechene into the mountains... But, now, I have come to think that he no longer loves me.' "'In truth, my dear girl, you could not have imagined anything worse!' "She burst out crying; then, proudly raising her head, she wiped away the tears and continued: "'If he does not love me, then who prevents him sending me home? I am not putting any constraint on him. But, if things go on like this, I will go away myself--I am not a slave, I am a prince's daughter!'... "I tried to talk her over. "'Listen, Bela. You see it is impossible for him to stop in here with you for ever, as if he was sewn on to your petticoat. He is a young man and fond of hunting. Off he'll go, but you will find that he will come back; and, if you are going to be unhappy, you will soon make him tired of you.' "'True, true!' she said. 'I will be merry.' "And with a burst of laughter, she seized her tambourine, began to sing, dance, and gambol around me. But that did not last long either; she fell upon the bed again and buried her face in her hands. "What could I do with her? You know I have never been accustomed to the society of women. I thought and thought how to cheer her up, but couldn't hit on anything. For some time both of us remained silent... A most unpleasant situation, sir! "At length I said to her: "'Would you like us to go and take a walk on the rampart? The weather is splendid.' "This was in September, and indeed it was a wonderful day, bright and not too hot. The mountains could be seen as clearly as though they were but a hand's-breadth away. We went, and walked in silence to and fro along the rampart of the fortress. At length she sat down on the sward, and I sat beside her. In truth, now, it is funny to think of it all! I used to run after her just like a kind of children's nurse! "Our fortress was situated in a lofty position, and the view from the rampart was superb. On one side, the wide clearing, seamed by a few clefts, was bounded by the forest which stretched out to the very ridge of the mountains. Here and there, on the clearing, villages were to be seen sending forth their smoke, and there were droves of horses roaming about. On the other side flowed a tiny stream, and close to its banks came the dense undergrowth which covered the flinty heights joining the principal chain of the Caucasus. We sat in a corner of the bastion, so that we could see everything on both sides. Suddenly I perceived someone on a grey horse riding out of the forest; nearer and nearer he approached until finally he stopped on the far side of the river, about a hundred fathoms from us, and began to wheel his horse round and round like one possessed. 'Strange!' I thought. "'Look, look, Bela,' I said, 'you've got young eyes--what sort of a horseman is that? Who is it he has come to amuse?'... "'It is Kazbich!' she exclaimed after a glance. "'Ah, the robber! Come to laugh at us, has he?' "I looked closely, and sure enough it was Kazbich, with his swarthy face, and as ragged and dirty as ever. "'It is my father's horse!' said Bela, seizing my arm. "She was trembling like a leaf and her eyes were sparkling. "'Aha!' I said to myself. 'There is robber's blood in your veins still, my dear!' "'Come here,' I said to the sentry. 'Look to your gun and unhorse that gallant for me--and you shall have a silver ruble.' "'Very well, your honour, only he won't keep still.' "'Tell him to!' I said, with a laugh. "'Hey, friend!' cried the sentry, waving his hand. 'Wait a bit. What are you spinning round like a humming-top for?' "Kazbich halted and gave ear to the sentry--probably thinking that we were going to parley with him. Quite the contrary!... My grenadier took aim... Bang!... Missed!... Just as the powder flashed in the pan Kazbich jogged his horse, which gave a bound to one side. He stood up in his stirrups, shouted something in his own language, made a threatening gesture with his whip--and was off. "'Aren't you ashamed of yourself?' I said to the sentry. "'He has gone away to die, your honour,' he answered. 'There's no killing a man of that cursed race at one stroke.' "A quarter of an hour later Pechorin returned from hunting. Bela threw herself on his neck without a single complaint, without a single reproach for his lengthy absence!... Even I was angry with him by this time! "'Good heavens!' I said; 'why, I tell you, Kazbich was here on the other side of the river just a moment ago, and we shot at him. How easily you might have run up against him, you know! These mountaineers are a vindictive race! Do you suppose he does not guess that you gave Azamat some help? And I wager that he recognised Bela to-day! I know he was desperately fond of her a year ago--he told me so himself--and, if he had had any hope of getting together a proper bridegroom's gift, he would certainly have sought her in marriage.' "At this Pechorin became thoughtful. "'Yes,' he answered. 'We must be more cautious--Bela, from this day forth you mustn't walk on the rampart any more.' "In the evening I had a lengthy explanation with him. I was vexed that his feelings towards the poor girl had changed; to say nothing of his spending half the day hunting, his manner towards her had become cold. He rarely caressed her, and she was beginning perceptibly to pine away; her little face was becoming drawn, her large eyes growing dim. "'What are you sighing for, Bela?' I would ask her. 'Are you sad?' "'No!' "'Do you want anything?' "'No!' "'You are pining for your kinsfolk?' "'I have none!' "Sometimes for whole days not a word could be drawn from her but 'Yes' and 'No.' "So I straightway proceeded to talk to Pechorin about her." CHAPTER IX "'LISTEN, Maksim Maksimych,' said Pechorin. 'Mine is an unfortunate disposition; whether it is the result of my upbringing or whether it is innate--I know not. I only know this, that if I am the cause of unhappiness in others I myself am no less unhappy. Of course, that is a poor consolation to them--only the fact remains that such is the case. In my early youth, from the moment I ceased to be under the guardianship of my relations, I began madly to enjoy all the pleasures which money could buy--and, of course, such pleasures became irksome to me. Then I launched out into the world of fashion--and that, too, soon palled upon me. I fell in love with fashionable beauties and was loved by them, but my imagination and egoism alone were aroused; my heart remained empty... I began to read, to study--but sciences also became utterly wearisome to me. I saw that neither fame nor happiness depends on them in the least, because the happiest people are the uneducated, and fame is good fortune, to attain which you have only to be smart. Then I grew bored... Soon afterwards I was transferred to the Caucasus; and that was the happiest time of my life. I hoped that under the bullets of the Chechenes boredom could not exist--a vain hope! In a month I grew so accustomed to the buzzing of the bullets and to the proximity of death that, to tell the truth, I paid more attention to the gnats--and I became more bored than ever, because I had lost what was almost my last hope. When I saw Bela in my own house; when, for the first time, I held her on my knee and kissed her black locks, I, fool that I was, thought that she was an angel sent to me by sympathetic fate... Again I was mistaken; the love of a savage is little better than that of your lady of quality, the barbaric ignorance and simplicity of the one weary you as much as the coquetry of the other. I am not saying that I do not love her still; I am grateful to her for a few fairly sweet moments; I would give my life for her--only I am bored with her... Whether I am a fool or a villain I know not; but this is certain, I am also most deserving of pity--perhaps more than she. My soul has been spoiled by the world, my imagination is unquiet, my heart insatiate. To me everything is of little moment. I become as easily accustomed to grief as to joy, and my life grows emptier day by day. One expedient only is left to me--travel. "'As soon as I can, I shall set off--but not to Europe. Heaven forfend! I shall go to America, to Arabia, to India--perchance I shall die somewhere on the way. At any rate, I am convinced that, thanks to storms and bad roads, that last consolation will not quickly be exhausted!' "For a long time he went on speaking thus, and his words have remained stamped upon my memory, because it was the first time that I had heard such things from a man of five-and-twenty--and Heaven grant it may be the last. Isn't it astonishing? Tell me, please," continued the staff-captain, appealing to me. "You used to live in the Capital, I think, and that not so very long ago. Is it possible that the young men there are all like that?" I replied that there were a good many people who used the same sort of language, that, probably, there might even be some who spoke in all sincerity; that disillusionment, moreover, like all other vogues, having had its beginning in the higher strata of society, had descended to the lower, where it was being worn threadbare, and that, now, those who were really and truly bored strove to conceal their misfortune as if it were a vice. The staff-captain did not understand these subtleties, shook his head, and smiled slyly. "Anyhow, I suppose it was the French who introduced the fashion?" "No, the English." "Aha, there you are!" he answered. "They always have been arrant drunkards, you know!" Involuntarily I recalled to mind a certain lady, living in Moscow, who used to maintain that Byron was nothing more nor less than a drunkard. However, the staff-captain's observation was more excusable; in order to abstain from strong drink, he naturally endeavoured to convince himself that all the misfortunes in the world are the result of drunkenness. CHAPTER X MEANWHILE the staff-captain continued his story. "Kazbich never put in an appearance again; but somehow--I don't know why--I could not get the idea out of my head that he had had a reason for coming, and that some mischievous scheme was in his mind. "Well, one day Pechorin tried to persuade me to go boar-hunting with him. For a long time I refused. What novelty was a wild boar to me? "However, off he dragged me, all the same. We took four or five soldiers and set out early in the morning. Up till ten o'clock we scurried about the reeds and the forest--there wasn't a wild beast to be found! "'I say, oughtn't we to be going back?' I said. 'What's the use of sticking at it? It is evident enough that we have happened on an unlucky day!' "But, in spite of heat and fatigue, Pechorin didn't like to return empty-handed... That is just the kind of man he was; whatever he set his heart on he had to have--evidently, in his childhood, he had been spoiled by an indulgent mother. At last, at midday, we discovered one of those cursed wild boars--Bang! Bang!--No good!--Off it went into the reeds. That was an unlucky day, to be sure!... So, after a short rest, we set off homeward... "We rode in silence, side by side, giving the horses their head. We had almost reached the fortress, and only the brushwood concealed it from view. Suddenly a shot rang out... We glanced at each other, both struck with the selfsame suspicion... We galloped headlong in the direction of the shot, looked, and saw the soldiers clustered together on the rampart and pointing towards a field, along which a rider was flying at full speed, holding something white across his saddle. Grigori Aleksandrovich yelled like any Chechene, whipped his gun from its cover, and gave chase--I after him. "Luckily, thanks to our unsuccessful hunt, our horses were not jaded; they strained under the saddle, and with every moment we drew nearer and nearer... At length I recognised Kazbich, only I could not make out what it was that he was holding in front of him. "Then I drew level with Pechorin and shouted to him: "'It is Kazbich!' "He looked at me, nodded, and struck his horse with his whip. "At last we were within gunshot of Kazbich. Whether it was that his horse was jaded or not so good as ours, I don't know, but, in spite of all his efforts, it did not get along very fast. I fancy at that moment he remembered his Karagyoz! "I looked at Pechorin. He was taking aim as he galloped... "'Don't shoot,' I cried. 'Save the shot! We will catch up with him as it is.' "Oh, these young men! Always taking fire at the wrong moment! The shot rang out and the bullet broke one of the horse's hind legs. It gave a few fiery leaps forward, stumbled, and fell to its knees. Kazbich sprang off, and then we perceived that it was a woman he was holding in his arms--a woman wrapped in a veil. It was Bela--poor Bela! He shouted something to us in his own language and raised his dagger over her... Delay was useless; I fired in my turn, at haphazard. Probably the bullet struck him in the shoulder, because he dropped his hand suddenly. When the smoke cleared off, we could see the wounded horse lying on the ground and Bela beside it; but Kazbich, his gun flung away, was clambering like a cat up the cliff, through the brushwood. I should have liked to have brought him down from there--but I hadn't a charge ready. We jumped off our horses and rushed to Bela. Poor girl! She was lying motionless, and the blood was pouring in streams from her wound. The villain! If he had struck her to the heart--well and good, everything would at least have been finished there and then; but to stab her in the back like that--the scoundrel! She was unconscious. We tore the veil into strips and bound up the wound as tightly as we could. In vain Pechorin kissed her cold lips--it was impossible to bring her to. "Pechorin mounted; I lifted Bela from the ground and somehow managed to place her before him on his saddle; he put his arm round her and we rode back. "'Look here, Maksim Maksimych,' said Grigori Aleksandrovich, after a few moments of silence. 'We will never bring her in alive like this.' "'True!' I said, and we put our horses to a full gallop." CHAPTER XI "A CROWD was awaiting us at the fortress gate. Carefully we carried the wounded girl to Pechorin's quarters, and then we sent for the doctor. The latter was drunk, but he came, examined the wound, and announced that she could not live more than a day. He was mistaken, though." "She recovered?" I asked the staff-captain, seizing him by the arm, and involuntarily rejoicing. "No," he replied, "but the doctor was so far mistaken that she lived two days longer." "Explain, though, how Kazbich made off with her!" "It was like this: in spite of Pechorin's prohibition, she went out of the fortress and down to the river. It was a very hot day, you know, and she sat on a rock and dipped her feet in the water. Up crept Kazbich, pounced upon her, silenced her, and dragged her into the bushes. Then he sprang on his horse and made off. In the meantime she succeeded in crying out, the sentries took the alarm, fired, but wide of the mark; and thereupon we arrived on the scene." "But what did Kazbich want to carry her off for?" "Good gracious! Why, everyone knows these Circassians are a race of thieves; they can't keep their hands off anything that is left lying about! They may not want a thing, but they will steal it, for all that. Still, you mustn't be too hard on them. And, besides, he had been in love with her for a long time." "And Bela died?" "Yes, she died, but she suffered for a long time, and we were fairly knocked up with her, I can tell you. About ten o'clock in the evening she came to herself. We were sitting by her bed. As soon as ever she opened her eyes she began to call Pechorin. "'I am here beside you, my janechka' (that is, 'my darling'), he answered, taking her by the hand. "'I shall die,' she said. "We began to comfort her, telling her that the doctor had promised infallibly to cure her. She shook her little head and turned to the wall--she did not want to die!... "At night she became delirious, her head burned, at times a feverish paroxysm convulsed her whole body. She talked incoherently about her father, her brother; she yearned for the mountains, for her home... Then she spoke of Pechorin also, called him various fond names, or reproached him for having ceased to love his janechka. "He listened to her in silence, his head sunk in his hands; but yet, during the whole time, I did not notice a single tear-drop on his lashes. I do not know whether he was actually unable to weep or was mastering himself; but for my part I have never seen anything more pitiful. "Towards morning the delirium passed off. For an hour or so she lay motionless, pale, and so weak that it was hardly possible to observe that she was breathing. After that she grew better and began to talk: only about what, think you? Such thoughts come only to the dying!... She lamented that she was not a Christian, that in the other world her soul would never meet the soul of Grigori Aleksandrovich, and that in Paradise another woman would be his companion. The thought occurred to me to baptize her before her death. I told her my idea; she looked at me undecidedly, and for a long time was unable to utter a word. Finally she answered that she would die in the faith in which she had been born. A whole day passed thus. What a change that day made in her! Her pale cheeks fell in, her eyes grew ever so large, her lips burned. She felt a consuming heat within her, as though a red-hot blade was piercing her breast. "The second night came on. We did not close our eyes or leave the bedside. She suffered terribly, and groaned; and directly the pain began to abate she endeavoured to assure Grigori Aleksandrovich that she felt better, tried to persuade him to go to bed, kissed his hand and would not let it out of hers. Before the morning she began to feel the death agony and to toss about. She knocked the bandage off, and the blood flowed afresh. When the wound was bound up again she grew quiet for a moment and begged Pechorin to kiss her. He fell on his knees beside the bed, raised her head from the pillow, and pressed his lips to hers--which were growing cold. She threw her trembling arms closely round his neck, as if with that kiss she wished to yield up her soul to him.--No, she did well to die! Why, what would have become of her if Grigori Aleksandrovich had abandoned her? And that is what would have happened, sooner or later. "During half the following day she was calm, silent and docile, however much the doctor tortured her with his fomentations and mixtures. "'Good heavens!' I said to him, 'you know you said yourself that she was certain to die, so what is the good of all these preparations of yours?' "'Even so, it is better to do all this,' he replied, 'so that I may have an easy conscience.' "A pretty conscience, forsooth! "After midday Bela began to suffer from thirst. We opened the windows, but it was hotter outside than in the room; we placed ice round the bed--all to no purpose. I knew that that intolerable thirst was a sign of the approaching end, and I told Pechorin so. "'Water, water!' she said in a hoarse voice, raising herself up from the bed. "Pechorin turned pale as a sheet, seized a glass, filled it, and gave it to her. I covered my eyes with my hands and began to say a prayer--I can't remember what... Yes, my friend, many a time have I seen people die in hospitals or on the field of battle, but this was something altogether different! Still, this one thing grieves me, I must confess: she died without even once calling me to mind. Yet I loved her, I should think, like a father!... Well, God forgive her!... And, to tell the truth, what am I that she should have remembered me when she was dying?... "As soon as she had drunk the water, she grew easier--but in about three minutes she breathed her last! We put a looking-glass to her lips--it was undimmed! "I led Pechorin from the room, and we went on to the fortress rampart. For a long time we walked side by side, to and fro, speaking not a word and with our hands clasped behind our backs. His face expressed nothing out of the common--and that vexed me. Had I been in his place, I should have died of grief. At length he sat down on the ground in the shade and began to draw something in the sand with his stick. More for form's sake than anything, you know, I tried to console him and began to talk. He raised his head and burst into a laugh! At that laugh a cold shudder ran through me... I went away to order a coffin. "I confess it was partly to distract my thoughts that I busied myself in that way. I possessed a little piece of Circassian stuff, and I | bored | How many times the word 'bored' appears in the text? | 2 |
versts in two hours! Meanwhile the clouds had descended, hail and snow fell; the wind, bursting into the ravines, howled and whistled like Nightingale the Robber. [16] Soon the stone cross was hidden in the mist, the billows of which, in ever denser and more compact masses, rushed in from the east... Concerning that stone cross, by the way, there exists the strange, but widespread, tradition that it had been set up by the Emperor Peter the First when travelling through the Caucasus. In the first place, however, the Emperor went no farther than Daghestan; and, in the second place, there is an inscription in large letters on the cross itself, to the effect that it had been erected by order of General Ermolov, and that too in the year 1824. Nevertheless, the tradition has taken such firm root, in spite of the inscription, that really you do not know what to believe; the more so, as it is not the custom to believe inscriptions. To reach the station Kobi, we still had to descend about five versts, across ice-covered rocks and plashy snow. The horses were exhausted; we were freezing; the snowstorm droned with ever-increasing violence, exactly like the storms of our own northern land, only its wild melodies were sadder and more melancholy. "O Exile," I thought, "thou art weeping for thy wide, free steppes! There mayest thou unfold thy cold wings, but here thou art stifled and confined, like an eagle beating his wings, with a shriek, against the grating of his iron cage!" "A bad look out," said the staff-captain. "Look! There's nothing to be seen all round but mist and snow. At any moment we may tumble into an abyss or stick fast in a cleft; and a little lower down, I dare say, the Baidara has risen so high that there is no getting across it. Oh, this Asia, I know it! Like people, like rivers! There's no trusting them at all!" The drivers, shouting and cursing, belaboured the horses, which snorted, resisted obstinately, and refused to budge on any account, notwithstanding the eloquence of the whips. "Your honour," one of the drivers said to me at length, "you see, we will never reach Kobi to-day. Won't you give orders to turn to the left while we can? There is something black yonder on the slope--probably huts. Travellers always stop there in bad weather, sir. They say," he added, pointing to the Ossetes, "that they will lead us there if you will give them a tip." "I know that, my friend, I know that without your telling me," said the staff-captain. "Oh, these beasts! They are delighted to seize any pretext for extorting a tip!" "You must confess, however," I said, "that we should be worse off without them." "Just so, just so," he growled to himself. "I know them well--these guides! They scent out by instinct a chance of taking advantage of people. As if it was impossible to find the way without them!" Accordingly we turned aside to the left, and, somehow or other, after a good deal of trouble, made our way to the wretched shelter, which consisted of two huts built of stone slabs and rubble, surrounded by a wall of the same material. Our ragged hosts received us with alacrity. I learned afterwards that the Government supplies them with money and food upon condition that they put up travellers who are overtaken by storm. CHAPTER VIII "ALL is for the best," I said, sitting down close by the fire. "Now you will finish telling me your story about Bela. I am certain that what you have already told me was not the end of it." "Why are you so certain?" answered the staff-captain, winking and smiling slyly. "Because things don't happen like that. A story with such an unusual beginning must also have an unusual ending." "You have guessed, of course"... "I am very glad to hear it." "It is all very well for you to be glad, but, indeed, it makes me sad when I think of it. Bela was a splendid girl. In the end I grew accustomed to her just as if she had been my own daughter, and she loved me. I must tell you that I have no family. I have had no news of my father and mother for twelve years or so, and, in my earlier days, I never thought of providing myself with a wife--and now, you know, it wouldn't do. So I was glad to have found someone to spoil. She used to sing to us or dance the Lezginka. [17].. And what a dancer she was! I have seen our own ladies in provincial society; and on one occasion, sir, about twenty years ago, I was even in the Nobles' Club at Moscow--but was there a woman to be compared with her? Not one! Grigori Aleksandrovich dressed her up like a doll, petted and pampered her, and it was simply astonishing to see how pretty she grew while she lived with us. The sunburn disappeared from her face and hands, and a rosy colour came into her cheeks... What a merry girl she was! Always making fun of me, the little rogue!... Heaven forgive her!" "And when you told her of her father's death?" "We kept it a secret from her for a long time, until she had grown accustomed to her position; and then, when she was told, she cried for a day or two and forgot all about it. "For four months or so everything went on as well as it possibly could. Grigori Aleksandrovich, as I think I have already mentioned, was passionately fond of hunting; he was always craving to be off into the forest after boars or wild goats--but now it would be as much as he would do to go beyond the fortress rampart. All at once, however, I saw that he was beginning again to have fits of abstraction, walking about his room with his hands clasped behind his back. One day after that, without telling anyone, he set off shooting. During the whole morning he was not to be seen; then the same thing happened another time, and so on--oftener and oftener... "'This looks bad!' I said to myself. 'Something must have come between them!' "One morning I paid them a visit--I can see it all in my mind's eye, as if it was happening now. Bela was sitting on the bed, wearing a black silk jacket, and looking rather pale and so sad that I was alarmed. "'Where is Pechorin?' I asked. "'Hunting.' "'When did he go--to-day?' "'She was silent, as if she found a difficulty in answering. "'No, he has been gone since yesterday,' she said at length, with a heavy sigh. "'Surely nothing has happened to him!' "'Yesterday I thought and thought the whole day,' she answered through her tears; 'I imagined all sorts of misfortunes. At one time I fancied that he had been wounded by a wild boar, at another time, that he had been carried off by a Chechene into the mountains... But, now, I have come to think that he no longer loves me.' "'In truth, my dear girl, you could not have imagined anything worse!' "She burst out crying; then, proudly raising her head, she wiped away the tears and continued: "'If he does not love me, then who prevents him sending me home? I am not putting any constraint on him. But, if things go on like this, I will go away myself--I am not a slave, I am a prince's daughter!'... "I tried to talk her over. "'Listen, Bela. You see it is impossible for him to stop in here with you for ever, as if he was sewn on to your petticoat. He is a young man and fond of hunting. Off he'll go, but you will find that he will come back; and, if you are going to be unhappy, you will soon make him tired of you.' "'True, true!' she said. 'I will be merry.' "And with a burst of laughter, she seized her tambourine, began to sing, dance, and gambol around me. But that did not last long either; she fell upon the bed again and buried her face in her hands. "What could I do with her? You know I have never been accustomed to the society of women. I thought and thought how to cheer her up, but couldn't hit on anything. For some time both of us remained silent... A most unpleasant situation, sir! "At length I said to her: "'Would you like us to go and take a walk on the rampart? The weather is splendid.' "This was in September, and indeed it was a wonderful day, bright and not too hot. The mountains could be seen as clearly as though they were but a hand's-breadth away. We went, and walked in silence to and fro along the rampart of the fortress. At length she sat down on the sward, and I sat beside her. In truth, now, it is funny to think of it all! I used to run after her just like a kind of children's nurse! "Our fortress was situated in a lofty position, and the view from the rampart was superb. On one side, the wide clearing, seamed by a few clefts, was bounded by the forest which stretched out to the very ridge of the mountains. Here and there, on the clearing, villages were to be seen sending forth their smoke, and there were droves of horses roaming about. On the other side flowed a tiny stream, and close to its banks came the dense undergrowth which covered the flinty heights joining the principal chain of the Caucasus. We sat in a corner of the bastion, so that we could see everything on both sides. Suddenly I perceived someone on a grey horse riding out of the forest; nearer and nearer he approached until finally he stopped on the far side of the river, about a hundred fathoms from us, and began to wheel his horse round and round like one possessed. 'Strange!' I thought. "'Look, look, Bela,' I said, 'you've got young eyes--what sort of a horseman is that? Who is it he has come to amuse?'... "'It is Kazbich!' she exclaimed after a glance. "'Ah, the robber! Come to laugh at us, has he?' "I looked closely, and sure enough it was Kazbich, with his swarthy face, and as ragged and dirty as ever. "'It is my father's horse!' said Bela, seizing my arm. "She was trembling like a leaf and her eyes were sparkling. "'Aha!' I said to myself. 'There is robber's blood in your veins still, my dear!' "'Come here,' I said to the sentry. 'Look to your gun and unhorse that gallant for me--and you shall have a silver ruble.' "'Very well, your honour, only he won't keep still.' "'Tell him to!' I said, with a laugh. "'Hey, friend!' cried the sentry, waving his hand. 'Wait a bit. What are you spinning round like a humming-top for?' "Kazbich halted and gave ear to the sentry--probably thinking that we were going to parley with him. Quite the contrary!... My grenadier took aim... Bang!... Missed!... Just as the powder flashed in the pan Kazbich jogged his horse, which gave a bound to one side. He stood up in his stirrups, shouted something in his own language, made a threatening gesture with his whip--and was off. "'Aren't you ashamed of yourself?' I said to the sentry. "'He has gone away to die, your honour,' he answered. 'There's no killing a man of that cursed race at one stroke.' "A quarter of an hour later Pechorin returned from hunting. Bela threw herself on his neck without a single complaint, without a single reproach for his lengthy absence!... Even I was angry with him by this time! "'Good heavens!' I said; 'why, I tell you, Kazbich was here on the other side of the river just a moment ago, and we shot at him. How easily you might have run up against him, you know! These mountaineers are a vindictive race! Do you suppose he does not guess that you gave Azamat some help? And I wager that he recognised Bela to-day! I know he was desperately fond of her a year ago--he told me so himself--and, if he had had any hope of getting together a proper bridegroom's gift, he would certainly have sought her in marriage.' "At this Pechorin became thoughtful. "'Yes,' he answered. 'We must be more cautious--Bela, from this day forth you mustn't walk on the rampart any more.' "In the evening I had a lengthy explanation with him. I was vexed that his feelings towards the poor girl had changed; to say nothing of his spending half the day hunting, his manner towards her had become cold. He rarely caressed her, and she was beginning perceptibly to pine away; her little face was becoming drawn, her large eyes growing dim. "'What are you sighing for, Bela?' I would ask her. 'Are you sad?' "'No!' "'Do you want anything?' "'No!' "'You are pining for your kinsfolk?' "'I have none!' "Sometimes for whole days not a word could be drawn from her but 'Yes' and 'No.' "So I straightway proceeded to talk to Pechorin about her." CHAPTER IX "'LISTEN, Maksim Maksimych,' said Pechorin. 'Mine is an unfortunate disposition; whether it is the result of my upbringing or whether it is innate--I know not. I only know this, that if I am the cause of unhappiness in others I myself am no less unhappy. Of course, that is a poor consolation to them--only the fact remains that such is the case. In my early youth, from the moment I ceased to be under the guardianship of my relations, I began madly to enjoy all the pleasures which money could buy--and, of course, such pleasures became irksome to me. Then I launched out into the world of fashion--and that, too, soon palled upon me. I fell in love with fashionable beauties and was loved by them, but my imagination and egoism alone were aroused; my heart remained empty... I began to read, to study--but sciences also became utterly wearisome to me. I saw that neither fame nor happiness depends on them in the least, because the happiest people are the uneducated, and fame is good fortune, to attain which you have only to be smart. Then I grew bored... Soon afterwards I was transferred to the Caucasus; and that was the happiest time of my life. I hoped that under the bullets of the Chechenes boredom could not exist--a vain hope! In a month I grew so accustomed to the buzzing of the bullets and to the proximity of death that, to tell the truth, I paid more attention to the gnats--and I became more bored than ever, because I had lost what was almost my last hope. When I saw Bela in my own house; when, for the first time, I held her on my knee and kissed her black locks, I, fool that I was, thought that she was an angel sent to me by sympathetic fate... Again I was mistaken; the love of a savage is little better than that of your lady of quality, the barbaric ignorance and simplicity of the one weary you as much as the coquetry of the other. I am not saying that I do not love her still; I am grateful to her for a few fairly sweet moments; I would give my life for her--only I am bored with her... Whether I am a fool or a villain I know not; but this is certain, I am also most deserving of pity--perhaps more than she. My soul has been spoiled by the world, my imagination is unquiet, my heart insatiate. To me everything is of little moment. I become as easily accustomed to grief as to joy, and my life grows emptier day by day. One expedient only is left to me--travel. "'As soon as I can, I shall set off--but not to Europe. Heaven forfend! I shall go to America, to Arabia, to India--perchance I shall die somewhere on the way. At any rate, I am convinced that, thanks to storms and bad roads, that last consolation will not quickly be exhausted!' "For a long time he went on speaking thus, and his words have remained stamped upon my memory, because it was the first time that I had heard such things from a man of five-and-twenty--and Heaven grant it may be the last. Isn't it astonishing? Tell me, please," continued the staff-captain, appealing to me. "You used to live in the Capital, I think, and that not so very long ago. Is it possible that the young men there are all like that?" I replied that there were a good many people who used the same sort of language, that, probably, there might even be some who spoke in all sincerity; that disillusionment, moreover, like all other vogues, having had its beginning in the higher strata of society, had descended to the lower, where it was being worn threadbare, and that, now, those who were really and truly bored strove to conceal their misfortune as if it were a vice. The staff-captain did not understand these subtleties, shook his head, and smiled slyly. "Anyhow, I suppose it was the French who introduced the fashion?" "No, the English." "Aha, there you are!" he answered. "They always have been arrant drunkards, you know!" Involuntarily I recalled to mind a certain lady, living in Moscow, who used to maintain that Byron was nothing more nor less than a drunkard. However, the staff-captain's observation was more excusable; in order to abstain from strong drink, he naturally endeavoured to convince himself that all the misfortunes in the world are the result of drunkenness. CHAPTER X MEANWHILE the staff-captain continued his story. "Kazbich never put in an appearance again; but somehow--I don't know why--I could not get the idea out of my head that he had had a reason for coming, and that some mischievous scheme was in his mind. "Well, one day Pechorin tried to persuade me to go boar-hunting with him. For a long time I refused. What novelty was a wild boar to me? "However, off he dragged me, all the same. We took four or five soldiers and set out early in the morning. Up till ten o'clock we scurried about the reeds and the forest--there wasn't a wild beast to be found! "'I say, oughtn't we to be going back?' I said. 'What's the use of sticking at it? It is evident enough that we have happened on an unlucky day!' "But, in spite of heat and fatigue, Pechorin didn't like to return empty-handed... That is just the kind of man he was; whatever he set his heart on he had to have--evidently, in his childhood, he had been spoiled by an indulgent mother. At last, at midday, we discovered one of those cursed wild boars--Bang! Bang!--No good!--Off it went into the reeds. That was an unlucky day, to be sure!... So, after a short rest, we set off homeward... "We rode in silence, side by side, giving the horses their head. We had almost reached the fortress, and only the brushwood concealed it from view. Suddenly a shot rang out... We glanced at each other, both struck with the selfsame suspicion... We galloped headlong in the direction of the shot, looked, and saw the soldiers clustered together on the rampart and pointing towards a field, along which a rider was flying at full speed, holding something white across his saddle. Grigori Aleksandrovich yelled like any Chechene, whipped his gun from its cover, and gave chase--I after him. "Luckily, thanks to our unsuccessful hunt, our horses were not jaded; they strained under the saddle, and with every moment we drew nearer and nearer... At length I recognised Kazbich, only I could not make out what it was that he was holding in front of him. "Then I drew level with Pechorin and shouted to him: "'It is Kazbich!' "He looked at me, nodded, and struck his horse with his whip. "At last we were within gunshot of Kazbich. Whether it was that his horse was jaded or not so good as ours, I don't know, but, in spite of all his efforts, it did not get along very fast. I fancy at that moment he remembered his Karagyoz! "I looked at Pechorin. He was taking aim as he galloped... "'Don't shoot,' I cried. 'Save the shot! We will catch up with him as it is.' "Oh, these young men! Always taking fire at the wrong moment! The shot rang out and the bullet broke one of the horse's hind legs. It gave a few fiery leaps forward, stumbled, and fell to its knees. Kazbich sprang off, and then we perceived that it was a woman he was holding in his arms--a woman wrapped in a veil. It was Bela--poor Bela! He shouted something to us in his own language and raised his dagger over her... Delay was useless; I fired in my turn, at haphazard. Probably the bullet struck him in the shoulder, because he dropped his hand suddenly. When the smoke cleared off, we could see the wounded horse lying on the ground and Bela beside it; but Kazbich, his gun flung away, was clambering like a cat up the cliff, through the brushwood. I should have liked to have brought him down from there--but I hadn't a charge ready. We jumped off our horses and rushed to Bela. Poor girl! She was lying motionless, and the blood was pouring in streams from her wound. The villain! If he had struck her to the heart--well and good, everything would at least have been finished there and then; but to stab her in the back like that--the scoundrel! She was unconscious. We tore the veil into strips and bound up the wound as tightly as we could. In vain Pechorin kissed her cold lips--it was impossible to bring her to. "Pechorin mounted; I lifted Bela from the ground and somehow managed to place her before him on his saddle; he put his arm round her and we rode back. "'Look here, Maksim Maksimych,' said Grigori Aleksandrovich, after a few moments of silence. 'We will never bring her in alive like this.' "'True!' I said, and we put our horses to a full gallop." CHAPTER XI "A CROWD was awaiting us at the fortress gate. Carefully we carried the wounded girl to Pechorin's quarters, and then we sent for the doctor. The latter was drunk, but he came, examined the wound, and announced that she could not live more than a day. He was mistaken, though." "She recovered?" I asked the staff-captain, seizing him by the arm, and involuntarily rejoicing. "No," he replied, "but the doctor was so far mistaken that she lived two days longer." "Explain, though, how Kazbich made off with her!" "It was like this: in spite of Pechorin's prohibition, she went out of the fortress and down to the river. It was a very hot day, you know, and she sat on a rock and dipped her feet in the water. Up crept Kazbich, pounced upon her, silenced her, and dragged her into the bushes. Then he sprang on his horse and made off. In the meantime she succeeded in crying out, the sentries took the alarm, fired, but wide of the mark; and thereupon we arrived on the scene." "But what did Kazbich want to carry her off for?" "Good gracious! Why, everyone knows these Circassians are a race of thieves; they can't keep their hands off anything that is left lying about! They may not want a thing, but they will steal it, for all that. Still, you mustn't be too hard on them. And, besides, he had been in love with her for a long time." "And Bela died?" "Yes, she died, but she suffered for a long time, and we were fairly knocked up with her, I can tell you. About ten o'clock in the evening she came to herself. We were sitting by her bed. As soon as ever she opened her eyes she began to call Pechorin. "'I am here beside you, my janechka' (that is, 'my darling'), he answered, taking her by the hand. "'I shall die,' she said. "We began to comfort her, telling her that the doctor had promised infallibly to cure her. She shook her little head and turned to the wall--she did not want to die!... "At night she became delirious, her head burned, at times a feverish paroxysm convulsed her whole body. She talked incoherently about her father, her brother; she yearned for the mountains, for her home... Then she spoke of Pechorin also, called him various fond names, or reproached him for having ceased to love his janechka. "He listened to her in silence, his head sunk in his hands; but yet, during the whole time, I did not notice a single tear-drop on his lashes. I do not know whether he was actually unable to weep or was mastering himself; but for my part I have never seen anything more pitiful. "Towards morning the delirium passed off. For an hour or so she lay motionless, pale, and so weak that it was hardly possible to observe that she was breathing. After that she grew better and began to talk: only about what, think you? Such thoughts come only to the dying!... She lamented that she was not a Christian, that in the other world her soul would never meet the soul of Grigori Aleksandrovich, and that in Paradise another woman would be his companion. The thought occurred to me to baptize her before her death. I told her my idea; she looked at me undecidedly, and for a long time was unable to utter a word. Finally she answered that she would die in the faith in which she had been born. A whole day passed thus. What a change that day made in her! Her pale cheeks fell in, her eyes grew ever so large, her lips burned. She felt a consuming heat within her, as though a red-hot blade was piercing her breast. "The second night came on. We did not close our eyes or leave the bedside. She suffered terribly, and groaned; and directly the pain began to abate she endeavoured to assure Grigori Aleksandrovich that she felt better, tried to persuade him to go to bed, kissed his hand and would not let it out of hers. Before the morning she began to feel the death agony and to toss about. She knocked the bandage off, and the blood flowed afresh. When the wound was bound up again she grew quiet for a moment and begged Pechorin to kiss her. He fell on his knees beside the bed, raised her head from the pillow, and pressed his lips to hers--which were growing cold. She threw her trembling arms closely round his neck, as if with that kiss she wished to yield up her soul to him.--No, she did well to die! Why, what would have become of her if Grigori Aleksandrovich had abandoned her? And that is what would have happened, sooner or later. "During half the following day she was calm, silent and docile, however much the doctor tortured her with his fomentations and mixtures. "'Good heavens!' I said to him, 'you know you said yourself that she was certain to die, so what is the good of all these preparations of yours?' "'Even so, it is better to do all this,' he replied, 'so that I may have an easy conscience.' "A pretty conscience, forsooth! "After midday Bela began to suffer from thirst. We opened the windows, but it was hotter outside than in the room; we placed ice round the bed--all to no purpose. I knew that that intolerable thirst was a sign of the approaching end, and I told Pechorin so. "'Water, water!' she said in a hoarse voice, raising herself up from the bed. "Pechorin turned pale as a sheet, seized a glass, filled it, and gave it to her. I covered my eyes with my hands and began to say a prayer--I can't remember what... Yes, my friend, many a time have I seen people die in hospitals or on the field of battle, but this was something altogether different! Still, this one thing grieves me, I must confess: she died without even once calling me to mind. Yet I loved her, I should think, like a father!... Well, God forgive her!... And, to tell the truth, what am I that she should have remembered me when she was dying?... "As soon as she had drunk the water, she grew easier--but in about three minutes she breathed her last! We put a looking-glass to her lips--it was undimmed! "I led Pechorin from the room, and we went on to the fortress rampart. For a long time we walked side by side, to and fro, speaking not a word and with our hands clasped behind our backs. His face expressed nothing out of the common--and that vexed me. Had I been in his place, I should have died of grief. At length he sat down on the ground in the shade and began to draw something in the sand with his stick. More for form's sake than anything, you know, I tried to console him and began to talk. He raised his head and burst into a laugh! At that laugh a cold shudder ran through me... I went away to order a coffin. "I confess it was partly to distract my thoughts that I busied myself in that way. I possessed a little piece of Circassian stuff, and I | answering | How many times the word 'answering' appears in the text? | 1 |
versts in two hours! Meanwhile the clouds had descended, hail and snow fell; the wind, bursting into the ravines, howled and whistled like Nightingale the Robber. [16] Soon the stone cross was hidden in the mist, the billows of which, in ever denser and more compact masses, rushed in from the east... Concerning that stone cross, by the way, there exists the strange, but widespread, tradition that it had been set up by the Emperor Peter the First when travelling through the Caucasus. In the first place, however, the Emperor went no farther than Daghestan; and, in the second place, there is an inscription in large letters on the cross itself, to the effect that it had been erected by order of General Ermolov, and that too in the year 1824. Nevertheless, the tradition has taken such firm root, in spite of the inscription, that really you do not know what to believe; the more so, as it is not the custom to believe inscriptions. To reach the station Kobi, we still had to descend about five versts, across ice-covered rocks and plashy snow. The horses were exhausted; we were freezing; the snowstorm droned with ever-increasing violence, exactly like the storms of our own northern land, only its wild melodies were sadder and more melancholy. "O Exile," I thought, "thou art weeping for thy wide, free steppes! There mayest thou unfold thy cold wings, but here thou art stifled and confined, like an eagle beating his wings, with a shriek, against the grating of his iron cage!" "A bad look out," said the staff-captain. "Look! There's nothing to be seen all round but mist and snow. At any moment we may tumble into an abyss or stick fast in a cleft; and a little lower down, I dare say, the Baidara has risen so high that there is no getting across it. Oh, this Asia, I know it! Like people, like rivers! There's no trusting them at all!" The drivers, shouting and cursing, belaboured the horses, which snorted, resisted obstinately, and refused to budge on any account, notwithstanding the eloquence of the whips. "Your honour," one of the drivers said to me at length, "you see, we will never reach Kobi to-day. Won't you give orders to turn to the left while we can? There is something black yonder on the slope--probably huts. Travellers always stop there in bad weather, sir. They say," he added, pointing to the Ossetes, "that they will lead us there if you will give them a tip." "I know that, my friend, I know that without your telling me," said the staff-captain. "Oh, these beasts! They are delighted to seize any pretext for extorting a tip!" "You must confess, however," I said, "that we should be worse off without them." "Just so, just so," he growled to himself. "I know them well--these guides! They scent out by instinct a chance of taking advantage of people. As if it was impossible to find the way without them!" Accordingly we turned aside to the left, and, somehow or other, after a good deal of trouble, made our way to the wretched shelter, which consisted of two huts built of stone slabs and rubble, surrounded by a wall of the same material. Our ragged hosts received us with alacrity. I learned afterwards that the Government supplies them with money and food upon condition that they put up travellers who are overtaken by storm. CHAPTER VIII "ALL is for the best," I said, sitting down close by the fire. "Now you will finish telling me your story about Bela. I am certain that what you have already told me was not the end of it." "Why are you so certain?" answered the staff-captain, winking and smiling slyly. "Because things don't happen like that. A story with such an unusual beginning must also have an unusual ending." "You have guessed, of course"... "I am very glad to hear it." "It is all very well for you to be glad, but, indeed, it makes me sad when I think of it. Bela was a splendid girl. In the end I grew accustomed to her just as if she had been my own daughter, and she loved me. I must tell you that I have no family. I have had no news of my father and mother for twelve years or so, and, in my earlier days, I never thought of providing myself with a wife--and now, you know, it wouldn't do. So I was glad to have found someone to spoil. She used to sing to us or dance the Lezginka. [17].. And what a dancer she was! I have seen our own ladies in provincial society; and on one occasion, sir, about twenty years ago, I was even in the Nobles' Club at Moscow--but was there a woman to be compared with her? Not one! Grigori Aleksandrovich dressed her up like a doll, petted and pampered her, and it was simply astonishing to see how pretty she grew while she lived with us. The sunburn disappeared from her face and hands, and a rosy colour came into her cheeks... What a merry girl she was! Always making fun of me, the little rogue!... Heaven forgive her!" "And when you told her of her father's death?" "We kept it a secret from her for a long time, until she had grown accustomed to her position; and then, when she was told, she cried for a day or two and forgot all about it. "For four months or so everything went on as well as it possibly could. Grigori Aleksandrovich, as I think I have already mentioned, was passionately fond of hunting; he was always craving to be off into the forest after boars or wild goats--but now it would be as much as he would do to go beyond the fortress rampart. All at once, however, I saw that he was beginning again to have fits of abstraction, walking about his room with his hands clasped behind his back. One day after that, without telling anyone, he set off shooting. During the whole morning he was not to be seen; then the same thing happened another time, and so on--oftener and oftener... "'This looks bad!' I said to myself. 'Something must have come between them!' "One morning I paid them a visit--I can see it all in my mind's eye, as if it was happening now. Bela was sitting on the bed, wearing a black silk jacket, and looking rather pale and so sad that I was alarmed. "'Where is Pechorin?' I asked. "'Hunting.' "'When did he go--to-day?' "'She was silent, as if she found a difficulty in answering. "'No, he has been gone since yesterday,' she said at length, with a heavy sigh. "'Surely nothing has happened to him!' "'Yesterday I thought and thought the whole day,' she answered through her tears; 'I imagined all sorts of misfortunes. At one time I fancied that he had been wounded by a wild boar, at another time, that he had been carried off by a Chechene into the mountains... But, now, I have come to think that he no longer loves me.' "'In truth, my dear girl, you could not have imagined anything worse!' "She burst out crying; then, proudly raising her head, she wiped away the tears and continued: "'If he does not love me, then who prevents him sending me home? I am not putting any constraint on him. But, if things go on like this, I will go away myself--I am not a slave, I am a prince's daughter!'... "I tried to talk her over. "'Listen, Bela. You see it is impossible for him to stop in here with you for ever, as if he was sewn on to your petticoat. He is a young man and fond of hunting. Off he'll go, but you will find that he will come back; and, if you are going to be unhappy, you will soon make him tired of you.' "'True, true!' she said. 'I will be merry.' "And with a burst of laughter, she seized her tambourine, began to sing, dance, and gambol around me. But that did not last long either; she fell upon the bed again and buried her face in her hands. "What could I do with her? You know I have never been accustomed to the society of women. I thought and thought how to cheer her up, but couldn't hit on anything. For some time both of us remained silent... A most unpleasant situation, sir! "At length I said to her: "'Would you like us to go and take a walk on the rampart? The weather is splendid.' "This was in September, and indeed it was a wonderful day, bright and not too hot. The mountains could be seen as clearly as though they were but a hand's-breadth away. We went, and walked in silence to and fro along the rampart of the fortress. At length she sat down on the sward, and I sat beside her. In truth, now, it is funny to think of it all! I used to run after her just like a kind of children's nurse! "Our fortress was situated in a lofty position, and the view from the rampart was superb. On one side, the wide clearing, seamed by a few clefts, was bounded by the forest which stretched out to the very ridge of the mountains. Here and there, on the clearing, villages were to be seen sending forth their smoke, and there were droves of horses roaming about. On the other side flowed a tiny stream, and close to its banks came the dense undergrowth which covered the flinty heights joining the principal chain of the Caucasus. We sat in a corner of the bastion, so that we could see everything on both sides. Suddenly I perceived someone on a grey horse riding out of the forest; nearer and nearer he approached until finally he stopped on the far side of the river, about a hundred fathoms from us, and began to wheel his horse round and round like one possessed. 'Strange!' I thought. "'Look, look, Bela,' I said, 'you've got young eyes--what sort of a horseman is that? Who is it he has come to amuse?'... "'It is Kazbich!' she exclaimed after a glance. "'Ah, the robber! Come to laugh at us, has he?' "I looked closely, and sure enough it was Kazbich, with his swarthy face, and as ragged and dirty as ever. "'It is my father's horse!' said Bela, seizing my arm. "She was trembling like a leaf and her eyes were sparkling. "'Aha!' I said to myself. 'There is robber's blood in your veins still, my dear!' "'Come here,' I said to the sentry. 'Look to your gun and unhorse that gallant for me--and you shall have a silver ruble.' "'Very well, your honour, only he won't keep still.' "'Tell him to!' I said, with a laugh. "'Hey, friend!' cried the sentry, waving his hand. 'Wait a bit. What are you spinning round like a humming-top for?' "Kazbich halted and gave ear to the sentry--probably thinking that we were going to parley with him. Quite the contrary!... My grenadier took aim... Bang!... Missed!... Just as the powder flashed in the pan Kazbich jogged his horse, which gave a bound to one side. He stood up in his stirrups, shouted something in his own language, made a threatening gesture with his whip--and was off. "'Aren't you ashamed of yourself?' I said to the sentry. "'He has gone away to die, your honour,' he answered. 'There's no killing a man of that cursed race at one stroke.' "A quarter of an hour later Pechorin returned from hunting. Bela threw herself on his neck without a single complaint, without a single reproach for his lengthy absence!... Even I was angry with him by this time! "'Good heavens!' I said; 'why, I tell you, Kazbich was here on the other side of the river just a moment ago, and we shot at him. How easily you might have run up against him, you know! These mountaineers are a vindictive race! Do you suppose he does not guess that you gave Azamat some help? And I wager that he recognised Bela to-day! I know he was desperately fond of her a year ago--he told me so himself--and, if he had had any hope of getting together a proper bridegroom's gift, he would certainly have sought her in marriage.' "At this Pechorin became thoughtful. "'Yes,' he answered. 'We must be more cautious--Bela, from this day forth you mustn't walk on the rampart any more.' "In the evening I had a lengthy explanation with him. I was vexed that his feelings towards the poor girl had changed; to say nothing of his spending half the day hunting, his manner towards her had become cold. He rarely caressed her, and she was beginning perceptibly to pine away; her little face was becoming drawn, her large eyes growing dim. "'What are you sighing for, Bela?' I would ask her. 'Are you sad?' "'No!' "'Do you want anything?' "'No!' "'You are pining for your kinsfolk?' "'I have none!' "Sometimes for whole days not a word could be drawn from her but 'Yes' and 'No.' "So I straightway proceeded to talk to Pechorin about her." CHAPTER IX "'LISTEN, Maksim Maksimych,' said Pechorin. 'Mine is an unfortunate disposition; whether it is the result of my upbringing or whether it is innate--I know not. I only know this, that if I am the cause of unhappiness in others I myself am no less unhappy. Of course, that is a poor consolation to them--only the fact remains that such is the case. In my early youth, from the moment I ceased to be under the guardianship of my relations, I began madly to enjoy all the pleasures which money could buy--and, of course, such pleasures became irksome to me. Then I launched out into the world of fashion--and that, too, soon palled upon me. I fell in love with fashionable beauties and was loved by them, but my imagination and egoism alone were aroused; my heart remained empty... I began to read, to study--but sciences also became utterly wearisome to me. I saw that neither fame nor happiness depends on them in the least, because the happiest people are the uneducated, and fame is good fortune, to attain which you have only to be smart. Then I grew bored... Soon afterwards I was transferred to the Caucasus; and that was the happiest time of my life. I hoped that under the bullets of the Chechenes boredom could not exist--a vain hope! In a month I grew so accustomed to the buzzing of the bullets and to the proximity of death that, to tell the truth, I paid more attention to the gnats--and I became more bored than ever, because I had lost what was almost my last hope. When I saw Bela in my own house; when, for the first time, I held her on my knee and kissed her black locks, I, fool that I was, thought that she was an angel sent to me by sympathetic fate... Again I was mistaken; the love of a savage is little better than that of your lady of quality, the barbaric ignorance and simplicity of the one weary you as much as the coquetry of the other. I am not saying that I do not love her still; I am grateful to her for a few fairly sweet moments; I would give my life for her--only I am bored with her... Whether I am a fool or a villain I know not; but this is certain, I am also most deserving of pity--perhaps more than she. My soul has been spoiled by the world, my imagination is unquiet, my heart insatiate. To me everything is of little moment. I become as easily accustomed to grief as to joy, and my life grows emptier day by day. One expedient only is left to me--travel. "'As soon as I can, I shall set off--but not to Europe. Heaven forfend! I shall go to America, to Arabia, to India--perchance I shall die somewhere on the way. At any rate, I am convinced that, thanks to storms and bad roads, that last consolation will not quickly be exhausted!' "For a long time he went on speaking thus, and his words have remained stamped upon my memory, because it was the first time that I had heard such things from a man of five-and-twenty--and Heaven grant it may be the last. Isn't it astonishing? Tell me, please," continued the staff-captain, appealing to me. "You used to live in the Capital, I think, and that not so very long ago. Is it possible that the young men there are all like that?" I replied that there were a good many people who used the same sort of language, that, probably, there might even be some who spoke in all sincerity; that disillusionment, moreover, like all other vogues, having had its beginning in the higher strata of society, had descended to the lower, where it was being worn threadbare, and that, now, those who were really and truly bored strove to conceal their misfortune as if it were a vice. The staff-captain did not understand these subtleties, shook his head, and smiled slyly. "Anyhow, I suppose it was the French who introduced the fashion?" "No, the English." "Aha, there you are!" he answered. "They always have been arrant drunkards, you know!" Involuntarily I recalled to mind a certain lady, living in Moscow, who used to maintain that Byron was nothing more nor less than a drunkard. However, the staff-captain's observation was more excusable; in order to abstain from strong drink, he naturally endeavoured to convince himself that all the misfortunes in the world are the result of drunkenness. CHAPTER X MEANWHILE the staff-captain continued his story. "Kazbich never put in an appearance again; but somehow--I don't know why--I could not get the idea out of my head that he had had a reason for coming, and that some mischievous scheme was in his mind. "Well, one day Pechorin tried to persuade me to go boar-hunting with him. For a long time I refused. What novelty was a wild boar to me? "However, off he dragged me, all the same. We took four or five soldiers and set out early in the morning. Up till ten o'clock we scurried about the reeds and the forest--there wasn't a wild beast to be found! "'I say, oughtn't we to be going back?' I said. 'What's the use of sticking at it? It is evident enough that we have happened on an unlucky day!' "But, in spite of heat and fatigue, Pechorin didn't like to return empty-handed... That is just the kind of man he was; whatever he set his heart on he had to have--evidently, in his childhood, he had been spoiled by an indulgent mother. At last, at midday, we discovered one of those cursed wild boars--Bang! Bang!--No good!--Off it went into the reeds. That was an unlucky day, to be sure!... So, after a short rest, we set off homeward... "We rode in silence, side by side, giving the horses their head. We had almost reached the fortress, and only the brushwood concealed it from view. Suddenly a shot rang out... We glanced at each other, both struck with the selfsame suspicion... We galloped headlong in the direction of the shot, looked, and saw the soldiers clustered together on the rampart and pointing towards a field, along which a rider was flying at full speed, holding something white across his saddle. Grigori Aleksandrovich yelled like any Chechene, whipped his gun from its cover, and gave chase--I after him. "Luckily, thanks to our unsuccessful hunt, our horses were not jaded; they strained under the saddle, and with every moment we drew nearer and nearer... At length I recognised Kazbich, only I could not make out what it was that he was holding in front of him. "Then I drew level with Pechorin and shouted to him: "'It is Kazbich!' "He looked at me, nodded, and struck his horse with his whip. "At last we were within gunshot of Kazbich. Whether it was that his horse was jaded or not so good as ours, I don't know, but, in spite of all his efforts, it did not get along very fast. I fancy at that moment he remembered his Karagyoz! "I looked at Pechorin. He was taking aim as he galloped... "'Don't shoot,' I cried. 'Save the shot! We will catch up with him as it is.' "Oh, these young men! Always taking fire at the wrong moment! The shot rang out and the bullet broke one of the horse's hind legs. It gave a few fiery leaps forward, stumbled, and fell to its knees. Kazbich sprang off, and then we perceived that it was a woman he was holding in his arms--a woman wrapped in a veil. It was Bela--poor Bela! He shouted something to us in his own language and raised his dagger over her... Delay was useless; I fired in my turn, at haphazard. Probably the bullet struck him in the shoulder, because he dropped his hand suddenly. When the smoke cleared off, we could see the wounded horse lying on the ground and Bela beside it; but Kazbich, his gun flung away, was clambering like a cat up the cliff, through the brushwood. I should have liked to have brought him down from there--but I hadn't a charge ready. We jumped off our horses and rushed to Bela. Poor girl! She was lying motionless, and the blood was pouring in streams from her wound. The villain! If he had struck her to the heart--well and good, everything would at least have been finished there and then; but to stab her in the back like that--the scoundrel! She was unconscious. We tore the veil into strips and bound up the wound as tightly as we could. In vain Pechorin kissed her cold lips--it was impossible to bring her to. "Pechorin mounted; I lifted Bela from the ground and somehow managed to place her before him on his saddle; he put his arm round her and we rode back. "'Look here, Maksim Maksimych,' said Grigori Aleksandrovich, after a few moments of silence. 'We will never bring her in alive like this.' "'True!' I said, and we put our horses to a full gallop." CHAPTER XI "A CROWD was awaiting us at the fortress gate. Carefully we carried the wounded girl to Pechorin's quarters, and then we sent for the doctor. The latter was drunk, but he came, examined the wound, and announced that she could not live more than a day. He was mistaken, though." "She recovered?" I asked the staff-captain, seizing him by the arm, and involuntarily rejoicing. "No," he replied, "but the doctor was so far mistaken that she lived two days longer." "Explain, though, how Kazbich made off with her!" "It was like this: in spite of Pechorin's prohibition, she went out of the fortress and down to the river. It was a very hot day, you know, and she sat on a rock and dipped her feet in the water. Up crept Kazbich, pounced upon her, silenced her, and dragged her into the bushes. Then he sprang on his horse and made off. In the meantime she succeeded in crying out, the sentries took the alarm, fired, but wide of the mark; and thereupon we arrived on the scene." "But what did Kazbich want to carry her off for?" "Good gracious! Why, everyone knows these Circassians are a race of thieves; they can't keep their hands off anything that is left lying about! They may not want a thing, but they will steal it, for all that. Still, you mustn't be too hard on them. And, besides, he had been in love with her for a long time." "And Bela died?" "Yes, she died, but she suffered for a long time, and we were fairly knocked up with her, I can tell you. About ten o'clock in the evening she came to herself. We were sitting by her bed. As soon as ever she opened her eyes she began to call Pechorin. "'I am here beside you, my janechka' (that is, 'my darling'), he answered, taking her by the hand. "'I shall die,' she said. "We began to comfort her, telling her that the doctor had promised infallibly to cure her. She shook her little head and turned to the wall--she did not want to die!... "At night she became delirious, her head burned, at times a feverish paroxysm convulsed her whole body. She talked incoherently about her father, her brother; she yearned for the mountains, for her home... Then she spoke of Pechorin also, called him various fond names, or reproached him for having ceased to love his janechka. "He listened to her in silence, his head sunk in his hands; but yet, during the whole time, I did not notice a single tear-drop on his lashes. I do not know whether he was actually unable to weep or was mastering himself; but for my part I have never seen anything more pitiful. "Towards morning the delirium passed off. For an hour or so she lay motionless, pale, and so weak that it was hardly possible to observe that she was breathing. After that she grew better and began to talk: only about what, think you? Such thoughts come only to the dying!... She lamented that she was not a Christian, that in the other world her soul would never meet the soul of Grigori Aleksandrovich, and that in Paradise another woman would be his companion. The thought occurred to me to baptize her before her death. I told her my idea; she looked at me undecidedly, and for a long time was unable to utter a word. Finally she answered that she would die in the faith in which she had been born. A whole day passed thus. What a change that day made in her! Her pale cheeks fell in, her eyes grew ever so large, her lips burned. She felt a consuming heat within her, as though a red-hot blade was piercing her breast. "The second night came on. We did not close our eyes or leave the bedside. She suffered terribly, and groaned; and directly the pain began to abate she endeavoured to assure Grigori Aleksandrovich that she felt better, tried to persuade him to go to bed, kissed his hand and would not let it out of hers. Before the morning she began to feel the death agony and to toss about. She knocked the bandage off, and the blood flowed afresh. When the wound was bound up again she grew quiet for a moment and begged Pechorin to kiss her. He fell on his knees beside the bed, raised her head from the pillow, and pressed his lips to hers--which were growing cold. She threw her trembling arms closely round his neck, as if with that kiss she wished to yield up her soul to him.--No, she did well to die! Why, what would have become of her if Grigori Aleksandrovich had abandoned her? And that is what would have happened, sooner or later. "During half the following day she was calm, silent and docile, however much the doctor tortured her with his fomentations and mixtures. "'Good heavens!' I said to him, 'you know you said yourself that she was certain to die, so what is the good of all these preparations of yours?' "'Even so, it is better to do all this,' he replied, 'so that I may have an easy conscience.' "A pretty conscience, forsooth! "After midday Bela began to suffer from thirst. We opened the windows, but it was hotter outside than in the room; we placed ice round the bed--all to no purpose. I knew that that intolerable thirst was a sign of the approaching end, and I told Pechorin so. "'Water, water!' she said in a hoarse voice, raising herself up from the bed. "Pechorin turned pale as a sheet, seized a glass, filled it, and gave it to her. I covered my eyes with my hands and began to say a prayer--I can't remember what... Yes, my friend, many a time have I seen people die in hospitals or on the field of battle, but this was something altogether different! Still, this one thing grieves me, I must confess: she died without even once calling me to mind. Yet I loved her, I should think, like a father!... Well, God forgive her!... And, to tell the truth, what am I that she should have remembered me when she was dying?... "As soon as she had drunk the water, she grew easier--but in about three minutes she breathed her last! We put a looking-glass to her lips--it was undimmed! "I led Pechorin from the room, and we went on to the fortress rampart. For a long time we walked side by side, to and fro, speaking not a word and with our hands clasped behind our backs. His face expressed nothing out of the common--and that vexed me. Had I been in his place, I should have died of grief. At length he sat down on the ground in the shade and began to draw something in the sand with his stick. More for form's sake than anything, you know, I tried to console him and began to talk. He raised his head and burst into a laugh! At that laugh a cold shudder ran through me... I went away to order a coffin. "I confess it was partly to distract my thoughts that I busied myself in that way. I possessed a little piece of Circassian stuff, and I | fame | How many times the word 'fame' appears in the text? | 2 |
versts in two hours! Meanwhile the clouds had descended, hail and snow fell; the wind, bursting into the ravines, howled and whistled like Nightingale the Robber. [16] Soon the stone cross was hidden in the mist, the billows of which, in ever denser and more compact masses, rushed in from the east... Concerning that stone cross, by the way, there exists the strange, but widespread, tradition that it had been set up by the Emperor Peter the First when travelling through the Caucasus. In the first place, however, the Emperor went no farther than Daghestan; and, in the second place, there is an inscription in large letters on the cross itself, to the effect that it had been erected by order of General Ermolov, and that too in the year 1824. Nevertheless, the tradition has taken such firm root, in spite of the inscription, that really you do not know what to believe; the more so, as it is not the custom to believe inscriptions. To reach the station Kobi, we still had to descend about five versts, across ice-covered rocks and plashy snow. The horses were exhausted; we were freezing; the snowstorm droned with ever-increasing violence, exactly like the storms of our own northern land, only its wild melodies were sadder and more melancholy. "O Exile," I thought, "thou art weeping for thy wide, free steppes! There mayest thou unfold thy cold wings, but here thou art stifled and confined, like an eagle beating his wings, with a shriek, against the grating of his iron cage!" "A bad look out," said the staff-captain. "Look! There's nothing to be seen all round but mist and snow. At any moment we may tumble into an abyss or stick fast in a cleft; and a little lower down, I dare say, the Baidara has risen so high that there is no getting across it. Oh, this Asia, I know it! Like people, like rivers! There's no trusting them at all!" The drivers, shouting and cursing, belaboured the horses, which snorted, resisted obstinately, and refused to budge on any account, notwithstanding the eloquence of the whips. "Your honour," one of the drivers said to me at length, "you see, we will never reach Kobi to-day. Won't you give orders to turn to the left while we can? There is something black yonder on the slope--probably huts. Travellers always stop there in bad weather, sir. They say," he added, pointing to the Ossetes, "that they will lead us there if you will give them a tip." "I know that, my friend, I know that without your telling me," said the staff-captain. "Oh, these beasts! They are delighted to seize any pretext for extorting a tip!" "You must confess, however," I said, "that we should be worse off without them." "Just so, just so," he growled to himself. "I know them well--these guides! They scent out by instinct a chance of taking advantage of people. As if it was impossible to find the way without them!" Accordingly we turned aside to the left, and, somehow or other, after a good deal of trouble, made our way to the wretched shelter, which consisted of two huts built of stone slabs and rubble, surrounded by a wall of the same material. Our ragged hosts received us with alacrity. I learned afterwards that the Government supplies them with money and food upon condition that they put up travellers who are overtaken by storm. CHAPTER VIII "ALL is for the best," I said, sitting down close by the fire. "Now you will finish telling me your story about Bela. I am certain that what you have already told me was not the end of it." "Why are you so certain?" answered the staff-captain, winking and smiling slyly. "Because things don't happen like that. A story with such an unusual beginning must also have an unusual ending." "You have guessed, of course"... "I am very glad to hear it." "It is all very well for you to be glad, but, indeed, it makes me sad when I think of it. Bela was a splendid girl. In the end I grew accustomed to her just as if she had been my own daughter, and she loved me. I must tell you that I have no family. I have had no news of my father and mother for twelve years or so, and, in my earlier days, I never thought of providing myself with a wife--and now, you know, it wouldn't do. So I was glad to have found someone to spoil. She used to sing to us or dance the Lezginka. [17].. And what a dancer she was! I have seen our own ladies in provincial society; and on one occasion, sir, about twenty years ago, I was even in the Nobles' Club at Moscow--but was there a woman to be compared with her? Not one! Grigori Aleksandrovich dressed her up like a doll, petted and pampered her, and it was simply astonishing to see how pretty she grew while she lived with us. The sunburn disappeared from her face and hands, and a rosy colour came into her cheeks... What a merry girl she was! Always making fun of me, the little rogue!... Heaven forgive her!" "And when you told her of her father's death?" "We kept it a secret from her for a long time, until she had grown accustomed to her position; and then, when she was told, she cried for a day or two and forgot all about it. "For four months or so everything went on as well as it possibly could. Grigori Aleksandrovich, as I think I have already mentioned, was passionately fond of hunting; he was always craving to be off into the forest after boars or wild goats--but now it would be as much as he would do to go beyond the fortress rampart. All at once, however, I saw that he was beginning again to have fits of abstraction, walking about his room with his hands clasped behind his back. One day after that, without telling anyone, he set off shooting. During the whole morning he was not to be seen; then the same thing happened another time, and so on--oftener and oftener... "'This looks bad!' I said to myself. 'Something must have come between them!' "One morning I paid them a visit--I can see it all in my mind's eye, as if it was happening now. Bela was sitting on the bed, wearing a black silk jacket, and looking rather pale and so sad that I was alarmed. "'Where is Pechorin?' I asked. "'Hunting.' "'When did he go--to-day?' "'She was silent, as if she found a difficulty in answering. "'No, he has been gone since yesterday,' she said at length, with a heavy sigh. "'Surely nothing has happened to him!' "'Yesterday I thought and thought the whole day,' she answered through her tears; 'I imagined all sorts of misfortunes. At one time I fancied that he had been wounded by a wild boar, at another time, that he had been carried off by a Chechene into the mountains... But, now, I have come to think that he no longer loves me.' "'In truth, my dear girl, you could not have imagined anything worse!' "She burst out crying; then, proudly raising her head, she wiped away the tears and continued: "'If he does not love me, then who prevents him sending me home? I am not putting any constraint on him. But, if things go on like this, I will go away myself--I am not a slave, I am a prince's daughter!'... "I tried to talk her over. "'Listen, Bela. You see it is impossible for him to stop in here with you for ever, as if he was sewn on to your petticoat. He is a young man and fond of hunting. Off he'll go, but you will find that he will come back; and, if you are going to be unhappy, you will soon make him tired of you.' "'True, true!' she said. 'I will be merry.' "And with a burst of laughter, she seized her tambourine, began to sing, dance, and gambol around me. But that did not last long either; she fell upon the bed again and buried her face in her hands. "What could I do with her? You know I have never been accustomed to the society of women. I thought and thought how to cheer her up, but couldn't hit on anything. For some time both of us remained silent... A most unpleasant situation, sir! "At length I said to her: "'Would you like us to go and take a walk on the rampart? The weather is splendid.' "This was in September, and indeed it was a wonderful day, bright and not too hot. The mountains could be seen as clearly as though they were but a hand's-breadth away. We went, and walked in silence to and fro along the rampart of the fortress. At length she sat down on the sward, and I sat beside her. In truth, now, it is funny to think of it all! I used to run after her just like a kind of children's nurse! "Our fortress was situated in a lofty position, and the view from the rampart was superb. On one side, the wide clearing, seamed by a few clefts, was bounded by the forest which stretched out to the very ridge of the mountains. Here and there, on the clearing, villages were to be seen sending forth their smoke, and there were droves of horses roaming about. On the other side flowed a tiny stream, and close to its banks came the dense undergrowth which covered the flinty heights joining the principal chain of the Caucasus. We sat in a corner of the bastion, so that we could see everything on both sides. Suddenly I perceived someone on a grey horse riding out of the forest; nearer and nearer he approached until finally he stopped on the far side of the river, about a hundred fathoms from us, and began to wheel his horse round and round like one possessed. 'Strange!' I thought. "'Look, look, Bela,' I said, 'you've got young eyes--what sort of a horseman is that? Who is it he has come to amuse?'... "'It is Kazbich!' she exclaimed after a glance. "'Ah, the robber! Come to laugh at us, has he?' "I looked closely, and sure enough it was Kazbich, with his swarthy face, and as ragged and dirty as ever. "'It is my father's horse!' said Bela, seizing my arm. "She was trembling like a leaf and her eyes were sparkling. "'Aha!' I said to myself. 'There is robber's blood in your veins still, my dear!' "'Come here,' I said to the sentry. 'Look to your gun and unhorse that gallant for me--and you shall have a silver ruble.' "'Very well, your honour, only he won't keep still.' "'Tell him to!' I said, with a laugh. "'Hey, friend!' cried the sentry, waving his hand. 'Wait a bit. What are you spinning round like a humming-top for?' "Kazbich halted and gave ear to the sentry--probably thinking that we were going to parley with him. Quite the contrary!... My grenadier took aim... Bang!... Missed!... Just as the powder flashed in the pan Kazbich jogged his horse, which gave a bound to one side. He stood up in his stirrups, shouted something in his own language, made a threatening gesture with his whip--and was off. "'Aren't you ashamed of yourself?' I said to the sentry. "'He has gone away to die, your honour,' he answered. 'There's no killing a man of that cursed race at one stroke.' "A quarter of an hour later Pechorin returned from hunting. Bela threw herself on his neck without a single complaint, without a single reproach for his lengthy absence!... Even I was angry with him by this time! "'Good heavens!' I said; 'why, I tell you, Kazbich was here on the other side of the river just a moment ago, and we shot at him. How easily you might have run up against him, you know! These mountaineers are a vindictive race! Do you suppose he does not guess that you gave Azamat some help? And I wager that he recognised Bela to-day! I know he was desperately fond of her a year ago--he told me so himself--and, if he had had any hope of getting together a proper bridegroom's gift, he would certainly have sought her in marriage.' "At this Pechorin became thoughtful. "'Yes,' he answered. 'We must be more cautious--Bela, from this day forth you mustn't walk on the rampart any more.' "In the evening I had a lengthy explanation with him. I was vexed that his feelings towards the poor girl had changed; to say nothing of his spending half the day hunting, his manner towards her had become cold. He rarely caressed her, and she was beginning perceptibly to pine away; her little face was becoming drawn, her large eyes growing dim. "'What are you sighing for, Bela?' I would ask her. 'Are you sad?' "'No!' "'Do you want anything?' "'No!' "'You are pining for your kinsfolk?' "'I have none!' "Sometimes for whole days not a word could be drawn from her but 'Yes' and 'No.' "So I straightway proceeded to talk to Pechorin about her." CHAPTER IX "'LISTEN, Maksim Maksimych,' said Pechorin. 'Mine is an unfortunate disposition; whether it is the result of my upbringing or whether it is innate--I know not. I only know this, that if I am the cause of unhappiness in others I myself am no less unhappy. Of course, that is a poor consolation to them--only the fact remains that such is the case. In my early youth, from the moment I ceased to be under the guardianship of my relations, I began madly to enjoy all the pleasures which money could buy--and, of course, such pleasures became irksome to me. Then I launched out into the world of fashion--and that, too, soon palled upon me. I fell in love with fashionable beauties and was loved by them, but my imagination and egoism alone were aroused; my heart remained empty... I began to read, to study--but sciences also became utterly wearisome to me. I saw that neither fame nor happiness depends on them in the least, because the happiest people are the uneducated, and fame is good fortune, to attain which you have only to be smart. Then I grew bored... Soon afterwards I was transferred to the Caucasus; and that was the happiest time of my life. I hoped that under the bullets of the Chechenes boredom could not exist--a vain hope! In a month I grew so accustomed to the buzzing of the bullets and to the proximity of death that, to tell the truth, I paid more attention to the gnats--and I became more bored than ever, because I had lost what was almost my last hope. When I saw Bela in my own house; when, for the first time, I held her on my knee and kissed her black locks, I, fool that I was, thought that she was an angel sent to me by sympathetic fate... Again I was mistaken; the love of a savage is little better than that of your lady of quality, the barbaric ignorance and simplicity of the one weary you as much as the coquetry of the other. I am not saying that I do not love her still; I am grateful to her for a few fairly sweet moments; I would give my life for her--only I am bored with her... Whether I am a fool or a villain I know not; but this is certain, I am also most deserving of pity--perhaps more than she. My soul has been spoiled by the world, my imagination is unquiet, my heart insatiate. To me everything is of little moment. I become as easily accustomed to grief as to joy, and my life grows emptier day by day. One expedient only is left to me--travel. "'As soon as I can, I shall set off--but not to Europe. Heaven forfend! I shall go to America, to Arabia, to India--perchance I shall die somewhere on the way. At any rate, I am convinced that, thanks to storms and bad roads, that last consolation will not quickly be exhausted!' "For a long time he went on speaking thus, and his words have remained stamped upon my memory, because it was the first time that I had heard such things from a man of five-and-twenty--and Heaven grant it may be the last. Isn't it astonishing? Tell me, please," continued the staff-captain, appealing to me. "You used to live in the Capital, I think, and that not so very long ago. Is it possible that the young men there are all like that?" I replied that there were a good many people who used the same sort of language, that, probably, there might even be some who spoke in all sincerity; that disillusionment, moreover, like all other vogues, having had its beginning in the higher strata of society, had descended to the lower, where it was being worn threadbare, and that, now, those who were really and truly bored strove to conceal their misfortune as if it were a vice. The staff-captain did not understand these subtleties, shook his head, and smiled slyly. "Anyhow, I suppose it was the French who introduced the fashion?" "No, the English." "Aha, there you are!" he answered. "They always have been arrant drunkards, you know!" Involuntarily I recalled to mind a certain lady, living in Moscow, who used to maintain that Byron was nothing more nor less than a drunkard. However, the staff-captain's observation was more excusable; in order to abstain from strong drink, he naturally endeavoured to convince himself that all the misfortunes in the world are the result of drunkenness. CHAPTER X MEANWHILE the staff-captain continued his story. "Kazbich never put in an appearance again; but somehow--I don't know why--I could not get the idea out of my head that he had had a reason for coming, and that some mischievous scheme was in his mind. "Well, one day Pechorin tried to persuade me to go boar-hunting with him. For a long time I refused. What novelty was a wild boar to me? "However, off he dragged me, all the same. We took four or five soldiers and set out early in the morning. Up till ten o'clock we scurried about the reeds and the forest--there wasn't a wild beast to be found! "'I say, oughtn't we to be going back?' I said. 'What's the use of sticking at it? It is evident enough that we have happened on an unlucky day!' "But, in spite of heat and fatigue, Pechorin didn't like to return empty-handed... That is just the kind of man he was; whatever he set his heart on he had to have--evidently, in his childhood, he had been spoiled by an indulgent mother. At last, at midday, we discovered one of those cursed wild boars--Bang! Bang!--No good!--Off it went into the reeds. That was an unlucky day, to be sure!... So, after a short rest, we set off homeward... "We rode in silence, side by side, giving the horses their head. We had almost reached the fortress, and only the brushwood concealed it from view. Suddenly a shot rang out... We glanced at each other, both struck with the selfsame suspicion... We galloped headlong in the direction of the shot, looked, and saw the soldiers clustered together on the rampart and pointing towards a field, along which a rider was flying at full speed, holding something white across his saddle. Grigori Aleksandrovich yelled like any Chechene, whipped his gun from its cover, and gave chase--I after him. "Luckily, thanks to our unsuccessful hunt, our horses were not jaded; they strained under the saddle, and with every moment we drew nearer and nearer... At length I recognised Kazbich, only I could not make out what it was that he was holding in front of him. "Then I drew level with Pechorin and shouted to him: "'It is Kazbich!' "He looked at me, nodded, and struck his horse with his whip. "At last we were within gunshot of Kazbich. Whether it was that his horse was jaded or not so good as ours, I don't know, but, in spite of all his efforts, it did not get along very fast. I fancy at that moment he remembered his Karagyoz! "I looked at Pechorin. He was taking aim as he galloped... "'Don't shoot,' I cried. 'Save the shot! We will catch up with him as it is.' "Oh, these young men! Always taking fire at the wrong moment! The shot rang out and the bullet broke one of the horse's hind legs. It gave a few fiery leaps forward, stumbled, and fell to its knees. Kazbich sprang off, and then we perceived that it was a woman he was holding in his arms--a woman wrapped in a veil. It was Bela--poor Bela! He shouted something to us in his own language and raised his dagger over her... Delay was useless; I fired in my turn, at haphazard. Probably the bullet struck him in the shoulder, because he dropped his hand suddenly. When the smoke cleared off, we could see the wounded horse lying on the ground and Bela beside it; but Kazbich, his gun flung away, was clambering like a cat up the cliff, through the brushwood. I should have liked to have brought him down from there--but I hadn't a charge ready. We jumped off our horses and rushed to Bela. Poor girl! She was lying motionless, and the blood was pouring in streams from her wound. The villain! If he had struck her to the heart--well and good, everything would at least have been finished there and then; but to stab her in the back like that--the scoundrel! She was unconscious. We tore the veil into strips and bound up the wound as tightly as we could. In vain Pechorin kissed her cold lips--it was impossible to bring her to. "Pechorin mounted; I lifted Bela from the ground and somehow managed to place her before him on his saddle; he put his arm round her and we rode back. "'Look here, Maksim Maksimych,' said Grigori Aleksandrovich, after a few moments of silence. 'We will never bring her in alive like this.' "'True!' I said, and we put our horses to a full gallop." CHAPTER XI "A CROWD was awaiting us at the fortress gate. Carefully we carried the wounded girl to Pechorin's quarters, and then we sent for the doctor. The latter was drunk, but he came, examined the wound, and announced that she could not live more than a day. He was mistaken, though." "She recovered?" I asked the staff-captain, seizing him by the arm, and involuntarily rejoicing. "No," he replied, "but the doctor was so far mistaken that she lived two days longer." "Explain, though, how Kazbich made off with her!" "It was like this: in spite of Pechorin's prohibition, she went out of the fortress and down to the river. It was a very hot day, you know, and she sat on a rock and dipped her feet in the water. Up crept Kazbich, pounced upon her, silenced her, and dragged her into the bushes. Then he sprang on his horse and made off. In the meantime she succeeded in crying out, the sentries took the alarm, fired, but wide of the mark; and thereupon we arrived on the scene." "But what did Kazbich want to carry her off for?" "Good gracious! Why, everyone knows these Circassians are a race of thieves; they can't keep their hands off anything that is left lying about! They may not want a thing, but they will steal it, for all that. Still, you mustn't be too hard on them. And, besides, he had been in love with her for a long time." "And Bela died?" "Yes, she died, but she suffered for a long time, and we were fairly knocked up with her, I can tell you. About ten o'clock in the evening she came to herself. We were sitting by her bed. As soon as ever she opened her eyes she began to call Pechorin. "'I am here beside you, my janechka' (that is, 'my darling'), he answered, taking her by the hand. "'I shall die,' she said. "We began to comfort her, telling her that the doctor had promised infallibly to cure her. She shook her little head and turned to the wall--she did not want to die!... "At night she became delirious, her head burned, at times a feverish paroxysm convulsed her whole body. She talked incoherently about her father, her brother; she yearned for the mountains, for her home... Then she spoke of Pechorin also, called him various fond names, or reproached him for having ceased to love his janechka. "He listened to her in silence, his head sunk in his hands; but yet, during the whole time, I did not notice a single tear-drop on his lashes. I do not know whether he was actually unable to weep or was mastering himself; but for my part I have never seen anything more pitiful. "Towards morning the delirium passed off. For an hour or so she lay motionless, pale, and so weak that it was hardly possible to observe that she was breathing. After that she grew better and began to talk: only about what, think you? Such thoughts come only to the dying!... She lamented that she was not a Christian, that in the other world her soul would never meet the soul of Grigori Aleksandrovich, and that in Paradise another woman would be his companion. The thought occurred to me to baptize her before her death. I told her my idea; she looked at me undecidedly, and for a long time was unable to utter a word. Finally she answered that she would die in the faith in which she had been born. A whole day passed thus. What a change that day made in her! Her pale cheeks fell in, her eyes grew ever so large, her lips burned. She felt a consuming heat within her, as though a red-hot blade was piercing her breast. "The second night came on. We did not close our eyes or leave the bedside. She suffered terribly, and groaned; and directly the pain began to abate she endeavoured to assure Grigori Aleksandrovich that she felt better, tried to persuade him to go to bed, kissed his hand and would not let it out of hers. Before the morning she began to feel the death agony and to toss about. She knocked the bandage off, and the blood flowed afresh. When the wound was bound up again she grew quiet for a moment and begged Pechorin to kiss her. He fell on his knees beside the bed, raised her head from the pillow, and pressed his lips to hers--which were growing cold. She threw her trembling arms closely round his neck, as if with that kiss she wished to yield up her soul to him.--No, she did well to die! Why, what would have become of her if Grigori Aleksandrovich had abandoned her? And that is what would have happened, sooner or later. "During half the following day she was calm, silent and docile, however much the doctor tortured her with his fomentations and mixtures. "'Good heavens!' I said to him, 'you know you said yourself that she was certain to die, so what is the good of all these preparations of yours?' "'Even so, it is better to do all this,' he replied, 'so that I may have an easy conscience.' "A pretty conscience, forsooth! "After midday Bela began to suffer from thirst. We opened the windows, but it was hotter outside than in the room; we placed ice round the bed--all to no purpose. I knew that that intolerable thirst was a sign of the approaching end, and I told Pechorin so. "'Water, water!' she said in a hoarse voice, raising herself up from the bed. "Pechorin turned pale as a sheet, seized a glass, filled it, and gave it to her. I covered my eyes with my hands and began to say a prayer--I can't remember what... Yes, my friend, many a time have I seen people die in hospitals or on the field of battle, but this was something altogether different! Still, this one thing grieves me, I must confess: she died without even once calling me to mind. Yet I loved her, I should think, like a father!... Well, God forgive her!... And, to tell the truth, what am I that she should have remembered me when she was dying?... "As soon as she had drunk the water, she grew easier--but in about three minutes she breathed her last! We put a looking-glass to her lips--it was undimmed! "I led Pechorin from the room, and we went on to the fortress rampart. For a long time we walked side by side, to and fro, speaking not a word and with our hands clasped behind our backs. His face expressed nothing out of the common--and that vexed me. Had I been in his place, I should have died of grief. At length he sat down on the ground in the shade and began to draw something in the sand with his stick. More for form's sake than anything, you know, I tried to console him and began to talk. He raised his head and burst into a laugh! At that laugh a cold shudder ran through me... I went away to order a coffin. "I confess it was partly to distract my thoughts that I busied myself in that way. I possessed a little piece of Circassian stuff, and I | rubbing | How many times the word 'rubbing' appears in the text? | 0 |
versts in two hours! Meanwhile the clouds had descended, hail and snow fell; the wind, bursting into the ravines, howled and whistled like Nightingale the Robber. [16] Soon the stone cross was hidden in the mist, the billows of which, in ever denser and more compact masses, rushed in from the east... Concerning that stone cross, by the way, there exists the strange, but widespread, tradition that it had been set up by the Emperor Peter the First when travelling through the Caucasus. In the first place, however, the Emperor went no farther than Daghestan; and, in the second place, there is an inscription in large letters on the cross itself, to the effect that it had been erected by order of General Ermolov, and that too in the year 1824. Nevertheless, the tradition has taken such firm root, in spite of the inscription, that really you do not know what to believe; the more so, as it is not the custom to believe inscriptions. To reach the station Kobi, we still had to descend about five versts, across ice-covered rocks and plashy snow. The horses were exhausted; we were freezing; the snowstorm droned with ever-increasing violence, exactly like the storms of our own northern land, only its wild melodies were sadder and more melancholy. "O Exile," I thought, "thou art weeping for thy wide, free steppes! There mayest thou unfold thy cold wings, but here thou art stifled and confined, like an eagle beating his wings, with a shriek, against the grating of his iron cage!" "A bad look out," said the staff-captain. "Look! There's nothing to be seen all round but mist and snow. At any moment we may tumble into an abyss or stick fast in a cleft; and a little lower down, I dare say, the Baidara has risen so high that there is no getting across it. Oh, this Asia, I know it! Like people, like rivers! There's no trusting them at all!" The drivers, shouting and cursing, belaboured the horses, which snorted, resisted obstinately, and refused to budge on any account, notwithstanding the eloquence of the whips. "Your honour," one of the drivers said to me at length, "you see, we will never reach Kobi to-day. Won't you give orders to turn to the left while we can? There is something black yonder on the slope--probably huts. Travellers always stop there in bad weather, sir. They say," he added, pointing to the Ossetes, "that they will lead us there if you will give them a tip." "I know that, my friend, I know that without your telling me," said the staff-captain. "Oh, these beasts! They are delighted to seize any pretext for extorting a tip!" "You must confess, however," I said, "that we should be worse off without them." "Just so, just so," he growled to himself. "I know them well--these guides! They scent out by instinct a chance of taking advantage of people. As if it was impossible to find the way without them!" Accordingly we turned aside to the left, and, somehow or other, after a good deal of trouble, made our way to the wretched shelter, which consisted of two huts built of stone slabs and rubble, surrounded by a wall of the same material. Our ragged hosts received us with alacrity. I learned afterwards that the Government supplies them with money and food upon condition that they put up travellers who are overtaken by storm. CHAPTER VIII "ALL is for the best," I said, sitting down close by the fire. "Now you will finish telling me your story about Bela. I am certain that what you have already told me was not the end of it." "Why are you so certain?" answered the staff-captain, winking and smiling slyly. "Because things don't happen like that. A story with such an unusual beginning must also have an unusual ending." "You have guessed, of course"... "I am very glad to hear it." "It is all very well for you to be glad, but, indeed, it makes me sad when I think of it. Bela was a splendid girl. In the end I grew accustomed to her just as if she had been my own daughter, and she loved me. I must tell you that I have no family. I have had no news of my father and mother for twelve years or so, and, in my earlier days, I never thought of providing myself with a wife--and now, you know, it wouldn't do. So I was glad to have found someone to spoil. She used to sing to us or dance the Lezginka. [17].. And what a dancer she was! I have seen our own ladies in provincial society; and on one occasion, sir, about twenty years ago, I was even in the Nobles' Club at Moscow--but was there a woman to be compared with her? Not one! Grigori Aleksandrovich dressed her up like a doll, petted and pampered her, and it was simply astonishing to see how pretty she grew while she lived with us. The sunburn disappeared from her face and hands, and a rosy colour came into her cheeks... What a merry girl she was! Always making fun of me, the little rogue!... Heaven forgive her!" "And when you told her of her father's death?" "We kept it a secret from her for a long time, until she had grown accustomed to her position; and then, when she was told, she cried for a day or two and forgot all about it. "For four months or so everything went on as well as it possibly could. Grigori Aleksandrovich, as I think I have already mentioned, was passionately fond of hunting; he was always craving to be off into the forest after boars or wild goats--but now it would be as much as he would do to go beyond the fortress rampart. All at once, however, I saw that he was beginning again to have fits of abstraction, walking about his room with his hands clasped behind his back. One day after that, without telling anyone, he set off shooting. During the whole morning he was not to be seen; then the same thing happened another time, and so on--oftener and oftener... "'This looks bad!' I said to myself. 'Something must have come between them!' "One morning I paid them a visit--I can see it all in my mind's eye, as if it was happening now. Bela was sitting on the bed, wearing a black silk jacket, and looking rather pale and so sad that I was alarmed. "'Where is Pechorin?' I asked. "'Hunting.' "'When did he go--to-day?' "'She was silent, as if she found a difficulty in answering. "'No, he has been gone since yesterday,' she said at length, with a heavy sigh. "'Surely nothing has happened to him!' "'Yesterday I thought and thought the whole day,' she answered through her tears; 'I imagined all sorts of misfortunes. At one time I fancied that he had been wounded by a wild boar, at another time, that he had been carried off by a Chechene into the mountains... But, now, I have come to think that he no longer loves me.' "'In truth, my dear girl, you could not have imagined anything worse!' "She burst out crying; then, proudly raising her head, she wiped away the tears and continued: "'If he does not love me, then who prevents him sending me home? I am not putting any constraint on him. But, if things go on like this, I will go away myself--I am not a slave, I am a prince's daughter!'... "I tried to talk her over. "'Listen, Bela. You see it is impossible for him to stop in here with you for ever, as if he was sewn on to your petticoat. He is a young man and fond of hunting. Off he'll go, but you will find that he will come back; and, if you are going to be unhappy, you will soon make him tired of you.' "'True, true!' she said. 'I will be merry.' "And with a burst of laughter, she seized her tambourine, began to sing, dance, and gambol around me. But that did not last long either; she fell upon the bed again and buried her face in her hands. "What could I do with her? You know I have never been accustomed to the society of women. I thought and thought how to cheer her up, but couldn't hit on anything. For some time both of us remained silent... A most unpleasant situation, sir! "At length I said to her: "'Would you like us to go and take a walk on the rampart? The weather is splendid.' "This was in September, and indeed it was a wonderful day, bright and not too hot. The mountains could be seen as clearly as though they were but a hand's-breadth away. We went, and walked in silence to and fro along the rampart of the fortress. At length she sat down on the sward, and I sat beside her. In truth, now, it is funny to think of it all! I used to run after her just like a kind of children's nurse! "Our fortress was situated in a lofty position, and the view from the rampart was superb. On one side, the wide clearing, seamed by a few clefts, was bounded by the forest which stretched out to the very ridge of the mountains. Here and there, on the clearing, villages were to be seen sending forth their smoke, and there were droves of horses roaming about. On the other side flowed a tiny stream, and close to its banks came the dense undergrowth which covered the flinty heights joining the principal chain of the Caucasus. We sat in a corner of the bastion, so that we could see everything on both sides. Suddenly I perceived someone on a grey horse riding out of the forest; nearer and nearer he approached until finally he stopped on the far side of the river, about a hundred fathoms from us, and began to wheel his horse round and round like one possessed. 'Strange!' I thought. "'Look, look, Bela,' I said, 'you've got young eyes--what sort of a horseman is that? Who is it he has come to amuse?'... "'It is Kazbich!' she exclaimed after a glance. "'Ah, the robber! Come to laugh at us, has he?' "I looked closely, and sure enough it was Kazbich, with his swarthy face, and as ragged and dirty as ever. "'It is my father's horse!' said Bela, seizing my arm. "She was trembling like a leaf and her eyes were sparkling. "'Aha!' I said to myself. 'There is robber's blood in your veins still, my dear!' "'Come here,' I said to the sentry. 'Look to your gun and unhorse that gallant for me--and you shall have a silver ruble.' "'Very well, your honour, only he won't keep still.' "'Tell him to!' I said, with a laugh. "'Hey, friend!' cried the sentry, waving his hand. 'Wait a bit. What are you spinning round like a humming-top for?' "Kazbich halted and gave ear to the sentry--probably thinking that we were going to parley with him. Quite the contrary!... My grenadier took aim... Bang!... Missed!... Just as the powder flashed in the pan Kazbich jogged his horse, which gave a bound to one side. He stood up in his stirrups, shouted something in his own language, made a threatening gesture with his whip--and was off. "'Aren't you ashamed of yourself?' I said to the sentry. "'He has gone away to die, your honour,' he answered. 'There's no killing a man of that cursed race at one stroke.' "A quarter of an hour later Pechorin returned from hunting. Bela threw herself on his neck without a single complaint, without a single reproach for his lengthy absence!... Even I was angry with him by this time! "'Good heavens!' I said; 'why, I tell you, Kazbich was here on the other side of the river just a moment ago, and we shot at him. How easily you might have run up against him, you know! These mountaineers are a vindictive race! Do you suppose he does not guess that you gave Azamat some help? And I wager that he recognised Bela to-day! I know he was desperately fond of her a year ago--he told me so himself--and, if he had had any hope of getting together a proper bridegroom's gift, he would certainly have sought her in marriage.' "At this Pechorin became thoughtful. "'Yes,' he answered. 'We must be more cautious--Bela, from this day forth you mustn't walk on the rampart any more.' "In the evening I had a lengthy explanation with him. I was vexed that his feelings towards the poor girl had changed; to say nothing of his spending half the day hunting, his manner towards her had become cold. He rarely caressed her, and she was beginning perceptibly to pine away; her little face was becoming drawn, her large eyes growing dim. "'What are you sighing for, Bela?' I would ask her. 'Are you sad?' "'No!' "'Do you want anything?' "'No!' "'You are pining for your kinsfolk?' "'I have none!' "Sometimes for whole days not a word could be drawn from her but 'Yes' and 'No.' "So I straightway proceeded to talk to Pechorin about her." CHAPTER IX "'LISTEN, Maksim Maksimych,' said Pechorin. 'Mine is an unfortunate disposition; whether it is the result of my upbringing or whether it is innate--I know not. I only know this, that if I am the cause of unhappiness in others I myself am no less unhappy. Of course, that is a poor consolation to them--only the fact remains that such is the case. In my early youth, from the moment I ceased to be under the guardianship of my relations, I began madly to enjoy all the pleasures which money could buy--and, of course, such pleasures became irksome to me. Then I launched out into the world of fashion--and that, too, soon palled upon me. I fell in love with fashionable beauties and was loved by them, but my imagination and egoism alone were aroused; my heart remained empty... I began to read, to study--but sciences also became utterly wearisome to me. I saw that neither fame nor happiness depends on them in the least, because the happiest people are the uneducated, and fame is good fortune, to attain which you have only to be smart. Then I grew bored... Soon afterwards I was transferred to the Caucasus; and that was the happiest time of my life. I hoped that under the bullets of the Chechenes boredom could not exist--a vain hope! In a month I grew so accustomed to the buzzing of the bullets and to the proximity of death that, to tell the truth, I paid more attention to the gnats--and I became more bored than ever, because I had lost what was almost my last hope. When I saw Bela in my own house; when, for the first time, I held her on my knee and kissed her black locks, I, fool that I was, thought that she was an angel sent to me by sympathetic fate... Again I was mistaken; the love of a savage is little better than that of your lady of quality, the barbaric ignorance and simplicity of the one weary you as much as the coquetry of the other. I am not saying that I do not love her still; I am grateful to her for a few fairly sweet moments; I would give my life for her--only I am bored with her... Whether I am a fool or a villain I know not; but this is certain, I am also most deserving of pity--perhaps more than she. My soul has been spoiled by the world, my imagination is unquiet, my heart insatiate. To me everything is of little moment. I become as easily accustomed to grief as to joy, and my life grows emptier day by day. One expedient only is left to me--travel. "'As soon as I can, I shall set off--but not to Europe. Heaven forfend! I shall go to America, to Arabia, to India--perchance I shall die somewhere on the way. At any rate, I am convinced that, thanks to storms and bad roads, that last consolation will not quickly be exhausted!' "For a long time he went on speaking thus, and his words have remained stamped upon my memory, because it was the first time that I had heard such things from a man of five-and-twenty--and Heaven grant it may be the last. Isn't it astonishing? Tell me, please," continued the staff-captain, appealing to me. "You used to live in the Capital, I think, and that not so very long ago. Is it possible that the young men there are all like that?" I replied that there were a good many people who used the same sort of language, that, probably, there might even be some who spoke in all sincerity; that disillusionment, moreover, like all other vogues, having had its beginning in the higher strata of society, had descended to the lower, where it was being worn threadbare, and that, now, those who were really and truly bored strove to conceal their misfortune as if it were a vice. The staff-captain did not understand these subtleties, shook his head, and smiled slyly. "Anyhow, I suppose it was the French who introduced the fashion?" "No, the English." "Aha, there you are!" he answered. "They always have been arrant drunkards, you know!" Involuntarily I recalled to mind a certain lady, living in Moscow, who used to maintain that Byron was nothing more nor less than a drunkard. However, the staff-captain's observation was more excusable; in order to abstain from strong drink, he naturally endeavoured to convince himself that all the misfortunes in the world are the result of drunkenness. CHAPTER X MEANWHILE the staff-captain continued his story. "Kazbich never put in an appearance again; but somehow--I don't know why--I could not get the idea out of my head that he had had a reason for coming, and that some mischievous scheme was in his mind. "Well, one day Pechorin tried to persuade me to go boar-hunting with him. For a long time I refused. What novelty was a wild boar to me? "However, off he dragged me, all the same. We took four or five soldiers and set out early in the morning. Up till ten o'clock we scurried about the reeds and the forest--there wasn't a wild beast to be found! "'I say, oughtn't we to be going back?' I said. 'What's the use of sticking at it? It is evident enough that we have happened on an unlucky day!' "But, in spite of heat and fatigue, Pechorin didn't like to return empty-handed... That is just the kind of man he was; whatever he set his heart on he had to have--evidently, in his childhood, he had been spoiled by an indulgent mother. At last, at midday, we discovered one of those cursed wild boars--Bang! Bang!--No good!--Off it went into the reeds. That was an unlucky day, to be sure!... So, after a short rest, we set off homeward... "We rode in silence, side by side, giving the horses their head. We had almost reached the fortress, and only the brushwood concealed it from view. Suddenly a shot rang out... We glanced at each other, both struck with the selfsame suspicion... We galloped headlong in the direction of the shot, looked, and saw the soldiers clustered together on the rampart and pointing towards a field, along which a rider was flying at full speed, holding something white across his saddle. Grigori Aleksandrovich yelled like any Chechene, whipped his gun from its cover, and gave chase--I after him. "Luckily, thanks to our unsuccessful hunt, our horses were not jaded; they strained under the saddle, and with every moment we drew nearer and nearer... At length I recognised Kazbich, only I could not make out what it was that he was holding in front of him. "Then I drew level with Pechorin and shouted to him: "'It is Kazbich!' "He looked at me, nodded, and struck his horse with his whip. "At last we were within gunshot of Kazbich. Whether it was that his horse was jaded or not so good as ours, I don't know, but, in spite of all his efforts, it did not get along very fast. I fancy at that moment he remembered his Karagyoz! "I looked at Pechorin. He was taking aim as he galloped... "'Don't shoot,' I cried. 'Save the shot! We will catch up with him as it is.' "Oh, these young men! Always taking fire at the wrong moment! The shot rang out and the bullet broke one of the horse's hind legs. It gave a few fiery leaps forward, stumbled, and fell to its knees. Kazbich sprang off, and then we perceived that it was a woman he was holding in his arms--a woman wrapped in a veil. It was Bela--poor Bela! He shouted something to us in his own language and raised his dagger over her... Delay was useless; I fired in my turn, at haphazard. Probably the bullet struck him in the shoulder, because he dropped his hand suddenly. When the smoke cleared off, we could see the wounded horse lying on the ground and Bela beside it; but Kazbich, his gun flung away, was clambering like a cat up the cliff, through the brushwood. I should have liked to have brought him down from there--but I hadn't a charge ready. We jumped off our horses and rushed to Bela. Poor girl! She was lying motionless, and the blood was pouring in streams from her wound. The villain! If he had struck her to the heart--well and good, everything would at least have been finished there and then; but to stab her in the back like that--the scoundrel! She was unconscious. We tore the veil into strips and bound up the wound as tightly as we could. In vain Pechorin kissed her cold lips--it was impossible to bring her to. "Pechorin mounted; I lifted Bela from the ground and somehow managed to place her before him on his saddle; he put his arm round her and we rode back. "'Look here, Maksim Maksimych,' said Grigori Aleksandrovich, after a few moments of silence. 'We will never bring her in alive like this.' "'True!' I said, and we put our horses to a full gallop." CHAPTER XI "A CROWD was awaiting us at the fortress gate. Carefully we carried the wounded girl to Pechorin's quarters, and then we sent for the doctor. The latter was drunk, but he came, examined the wound, and announced that she could not live more than a day. He was mistaken, though." "She recovered?" I asked the staff-captain, seizing him by the arm, and involuntarily rejoicing. "No," he replied, "but the doctor was so far mistaken that she lived two days longer." "Explain, though, how Kazbich made off with her!" "It was like this: in spite of Pechorin's prohibition, she went out of the fortress and down to the river. It was a very hot day, you know, and she sat on a rock and dipped her feet in the water. Up crept Kazbich, pounced upon her, silenced her, and dragged her into the bushes. Then he sprang on his horse and made off. In the meantime she succeeded in crying out, the sentries took the alarm, fired, but wide of the mark; and thereupon we arrived on the scene." "But what did Kazbich want to carry her off for?" "Good gracious! Why, everyone knows these Circassians are a race of thieves; they can't keep their hands off anything that is left lying about! They may not want a thing, but they will steal it, for all that. Still, you mustn't be too hard on them. And, besides, he had been in love with her for a long time." "And Bela died?" "Yes, she died, but she suffered for a long time, and we were fairly knocked up with her, I can tell you. About ten o'clock in the evening she came to herself. We were sitting by her bed. As soon as ever she opened her eyes she began to call Pechorin. "'I am here beside you, my janechka' (that is, 'my darling'), he answered, taking her by the hand. "'I shall die,' she said. "We began to comfort her, telling her that the doctor had promised infallibly to cure her. She shook her little head and turned to the wall--she did not want to die!... "At night she became delirious, her head burned, at times a feverish paroxysm convulsed her whole body. She talked incoherently about her father, her brother; she yearned for the mountains, for her home... Then she spoke of Pechorin also, called him various fond names, or reproached him for having ceased to love his janechka. "He listened to her in silence, his head sunk in his hands; but yet, during the whole time, I did not notice a single tear-drop on his lashes. I do not know whether he was actually unable to weep or was mastering himself; but for my part I have never seen anything more pitiful. "Towards morning the delirium passed off. For an hour or so she lay motionless, pale, and so weak that it was hardly possible to observe that she was breathing. After that she grew better and began to talk: only about what, think you? Such thoughts come only to the dying!... She lamented that she was not a Christian, that in the other world her soul would never meet the soul of Grigori Aleksandrovich, and that in Paradise another woman would be his companion. The thought occurred to me to baptize her before her death. I told her my idea; she looked at me undecidedly, and for a long time was unable to utter a word. Finally she answered that she would die in the faith in which she had been born. A whole day passed thus. What a change that day made in her! Her pale cheeks fell in, her eyes grew ever so large, her lips burned. She felt a consuming heat within her, as though a red-hot blade was piercing her breast. "The second night came on. We did not close our eyes or leave the bedside. She suffered terribly, and groaned; and directly the pain began to abate she endeavoured to assure Grigori Aleksandrovich that she felt better, tried to persuade him to go to bed, kissed his hand and would not let it out of hers. Before the morning she began to feel the death agony and to toss about. She knocked the bandage off, and the blood flowed afresh. When the wound was bound up again she grew quiet for a moment and begged Pechorin to kiss her. He fell on his knees beside the bed, raised her head from the pillow, and pressed his lips to hers--which were growing cold. She threw her trembling arms closely round his neck, as if with that kiss she wished to yield up her soul to him.--No, she did well to die! Why, what would have become of her if Grigori Aleksandrovich had abandoned her? And that is what would have happened, sooner or later. "During half the following day she was calm, silent and docile, however much the doctor tortured her with his fomentations and mixtures. "'Good heavens!' I said to him, 'you know you said yourself that she was certain to die, so what is the good of all these preparations of yours?' "'Even so, it is better to do all this,' he replied, 'so that I may have an easy conscience.' "A pretty conscience, forsooth! "After midday Bela began to suffer from thirst. We opened the windows, but it was hotter outside than in the room; we placed ice round the bed--all to no purpose. I knew that that intolerable thirst was a sign of the approaching end, and I told Pechorin so. "'Water, water!' she said in a hoarse voice, raising herself up from the bed. "Pechorin turned pale as a sheet, seized a glass, filled it, and gave it to her. I covered my eyes with my hands and began to say a prayer--I can't remember what... Yes, my friend, many a time have I seen people die in hospitals or on the field of battle, but this was something altogether different! Still, this one thing grieves me, I must confess: she died without even once calling me to mind. Yet I loved her, I should think, like a father!... Well, God forgive her!... And, to tell the truth, what am I that she should have remembered me when she was dying?... "As soon as she had drunk the water, she grew easier--but in about three minutes she breathed her last! We put a looking-glass to her lips--it was undimmed! "I led Pechorin from the room, and we went on to the fortress rampart. For a long time we walked side by side, to and fro, speaking not a word and with our hands clasped behind our backs. His face expressed nothing out of the common--and that vexed me. Had I been in his place, I should have died of grief. At length he sat down on the ground in the shade and began to draw something in the sand with his stick. More for form's sake than anything, you know, I tried to console him and began to talk. He raised his head and burst into a laugh! At that laugh a cold shudder ran through me... I went away to order a coffin. "I confess it was partly to distract my thoughts that I busied myself in that way. I possessed a little piece of Circassian stuff, and I | preferred | How many times the word 'preferred' appears in the text? | 0 |
versts in two hours! Meanwhile the clouds had descended, hail and snow fell; the wind, bursting into the ravines, howled and whistled like Nightingale the Robber. [16] Soon the stone cross was hidden in the mist, the billows of which, in ever denser and more compact masses, rushed in from the east... Concerning that stone cross, by the way, there exists the strange, but widespread, tradition that it had been set up by the Emperor Peter the First when travelling through the Caucasus. In the first place, however, the Emperor went no farther than Daghestan; and, in the second place, there is an inscription in large letters on the cross itself, to the effect that it had been erected by order of General Ermolov, and that too in the year 1824. Nevertheless, the tradition has taken such firm root, in spite of the inscription, that really you do not know what to believe; the more so, as it is not the custom to believe inscriptions. To reach the station Kobi, we still had to descend about five versts, across ice-covered rocks and plashy snow. The horses were exhausted; we were freezing; the snowstorm droned with ever-increasing violence, exactly like the storms of our own northern land, only its wild melodies were sadder and more melancholy. "O Exile," I thought, "thou art weeping for thy wide, free steppes! There mayest thou unfold thy cold wings, but here thou art stifled and confined, like an eagle beating his wings, with a shriek, against the grating of his iron cage!" "A bad look out," said the staff-captain. "Look! There's nothing to be seen all round but mist and snow. At any moment we may tumble into an abyss or stick fast in a cleft; and a little lower down, I dare say, the Baidara has risen so high that there is no getting across it. Oh, this Asia, I know it! Like people, like rivers! There's no trusting them at all!" The drivers, shouting and cursing, belaboured the horses, which snorted, resisted obstinately, and refused to budge on any account, notwithstanding the eloquence of the whips. "Your honour," one of the drivers said to me at length, "you see, we will never reach Kobi to-day. Won't you give orders to turn to the left while we can? There is something black yonder on the slope--probably huts. Travellers always stop there in bad weather, sir. They say," he added, pointing to the Ossetes, "that they will lead us there if you will give them a tip." "I know that, my friend, I know that without your telling me," said the staff-captain. "Oh, these beasts! They are delighted to seize any pretext for extorting a tip!" "You must confess, however," I said, "that we should be worse off without them." "Just so, just so," he growled to himself. "I know them well--these guides! They scent out by instinct a chance of taking advantage of people. As if it was impossible to find the way without them!" Accordingly we turned aside to the left, and, somehow or other, after a good deal of trouble, made our way to the wretched shelter, which consisted of two huts built of stone slabs and rubble, surrounded by a wall of the same material. Our ragged hosts received us with alacrity. I learned afterwards that the Government supplies them with money and food upon condition that they put up travellers who are overtaken by storm. CHAPTER VIII "ALL is for the best," I said, sitting down close by the fire. "Now you will finish telling me your story about Bela. I am certain that what you have already told me was not the end of it." "Why are you so certain?" answered the staff-captain, winking and smiling slyly. "Because things don't happen like that. A story with such an unusual beginning must also have an unusual ending." "You have guessed, of course"... "I am very glad to hear it." "It is all very well for you to be glad, but, indeed, it makes me sad when I think of it. Bela was a splendid girl. In the end I grew accustomed to her just as if she had been my own daughter, and she loved me. I must tell you that I have no family. I have had no news of my father and mother for twelve years or so, and, in my earlier days, I never thought of providing myself with a wife--and now, you know, it wouldn't do. So I was glad to have found someone to spoil. She used to sing to us or dance the Lezginka. [17].. And what a dancer she was! I have seen our own ladies in provincial society; and on one occasion, sir, about twenty years ago, I was even in the Nobles' Club at Moscow--but was there a woman to be compared with her? Not one! Grigori Aleksandrovich dressed her up like a doll, petted and pampered her, and it was simply astonishing to see how pretty she grew while she lived with us. The sunburn disappeared from her face and hands, and a rosy colour came into her cheeks... What a merry girl she was! Always making fun of me, the little rogue!... Heaven forgive her!" "And when you told her of her father's death?" "We kept it a secret from her for a long time, until she had grown accustomed to her position; and then, when she was told, she cried for a day or two and forgot all about it. "For four months or so everything went on as well as it possibly could. Grigori Aleksandrovich, as I think I have already mentioned, was passionately fond of hunting; he was always craving to be off into the forest after boars or wild goats--but now it would be as much as he would do to go beyond the fortress rampart. All at once, however, I saw that he was beginning again to have fits of abstraction, walking about his room with his hands clasped behind his back. One day after that, without telling anyone, he set off shooting. During the whole morning he was not to be seen; then the same thing happened another time, and so on--oftener and oftener... "'This looks bad!' I said to myself. 'Something must have come between them!' "One morning I paid them a visit--I can see it all in my mind's eye, as if it was happening now. Bela was sitting on the bed, wearing a black silk jacket, and looking rather pale and so sad that I was alarmed. "'Where is Pechorin?' I asked. "'Hunting.' "'When did he go--to-day?' "'She was silent, as if she found a difficulty in answering. "'No, he has been gone since yesterday,' she said at length, with a heavy sigh. "'Surely nothing has happened to him!' "'Yesterday I thought and thought the whole day,' she answered through her tears; 'I imagined all sorts of misfortunes. At one time I fancied that he had been wounded by a wild boar, at another time, that he had been carried off by a Chechene into the mountains... But, now, I have come to think that he no longer loves me.' "'In truth, my dear girl, you could not have imagined anything worse!' "She burst out crying; then, proudly raising her head, she wiped away the tears and continued: "'If he does not love me, then who prevents him sending me home? I am not putting any constraint on him. But, if things go on like this, I will go away myself--I am not a slave, I am a prince's daughter!'... "I tried to talk her over. "'Listen, Bela. You see it is impossible for him to stop in here with you for ever, as if he was sewn on to your petticoat. He is a young man and fond of hunting. Off he'll go, but you will find that he will come back; and, if you are going to be unhappy, you will soon make him tired of you.' "'True, true!' she said. 'I will be merry.' "And with a burst of laughter, she seized her tambourine, began to sing, dance, and gambol around me. But that did not last long either; she fell upon the bed again and buried her face in her hands. "What could I do with her? You know I have never been accustomed to the society of women. I thought and thought how to cheer her up, but couldn't hit on anything. For some time both of us remained silent... A most unpleasant situation, sir! "At length I said to her: "'Would you like us to go and take a walk on the rampart? The weather is splendid.' "This was in September, and indeed it was a wonderful day, bright and not too hot. The mountains could be seen as clearly as though they were but a hand's-breadth away. We went, and walked in silence to and fro along the rampart of the fortress. At length she sat down on the sward, and I sat beside her. In truth, now, it is funny to think of it all! I used to run after her just like a kind of children's nurse! "Our fortress was situated in a lofty position, and the view from the rampart was superb. On one side, the wide clearing, seamed by a few clefts, was bounded by the forest which stretched out to the very ridge of the mountains. Here and there, on the clearing, villages were to be seen sending forth their smoke, and there were droves of horses roaming about. On the other side flowed a tiny stream, and close to its banks came the dense undergrowth which covered the flinty heights joining the principal chain of the Caucasus. We sat in a corner of the bastion, so that we could see everything on both sides. Suddenly I perceived someone on a grey horse riding out of the forest; nearer and nearer he approached until finally he stopped on the far side of the river, about a hundred fathoms from us, and began to wheel his horse round and round like one possessed. 'Strange!' I thought. "'Look, look, Bela,' I said, 'you've got young eyes--what sort of a horseman is that? Who is it he has come to amuse?'... "'It is Kazbich!' she exclaimed after a glance. "'Ah, the robber! Come to laugh at us, has he?' "I looked closely, and sure enough it was Kazbich, with his swarthy face, and as ragged and dirty as ever. "'It is my father's horse!' said Bela, seizing my arm. "She was trembling like a leaf and her eyes were sparkling. "'Aha!' I said to myself. 'There is robber's blood in your veins still, my dear!' "'Come here,' I said to the sentry. 'Look to your gun and unhorse that gallant for me--and you shall have a silver ruble.' "'Very well, your honour, only he won't keep still.' "'Tell him to!' I said, with a laugh. "'Hey, friend!' cried the sentry, waving his hand. 'Wait a bit. What are you spinning round like a humming-top for?' "Kazbich halted and gave ear to the sentry--probably thinking that we were going to parley with him. Quite the contrary!... My grenadier took aim... Bang!... Missed!... Just as the powder flashed in the pan Kazbich jogged his horse, which gave a bound to one side. He stood up in his stirrups, shouted something in his own language, made a threatening gesture with his whip--and was off. "'Aren't you ashamed of yourself?' I said to the sentry. "'He has gone away to die, your honour,' he answered. 'There's no killing a man of that cursed race at one stroke.' "A quarter of an hour later Pechorin returned from hunting. Bela threw herself on his neck without a single complaint, without a single reproach for his lengthy absence!... Even I was angry with him by this time! "'Good heavens!' I said; 'why, I tell you, Kazbich was here on the other side of the river just a moment ago, and we shot at him. How easily you might have run up against him, you know! These mountaineers are a vindictive race! Do you suppose he does not guess that you gave Azamat some help? And I wager that he recognised Bela to-day! I know he was desperately fond of her a year ago--he told me so himself--and, if he had had any hope of getting together a proper bridegroom's gift, he would certainly have sought her in marriage.' "At this Pechorin became thoughtful. "'Yes,' he answered. 'We must be more cautious--Bela, from this day forth you mustn't walk on the rampart any more.' "In the evening I had a lengthy explanation with him. I was vexed that his feelings towards the poor girl had changed; to say nothing of his spending half the day hunting, his manner towards her had become cold. He rarely caressed her, and she was beginning perceptibly to pine away; her little face was becoming drawn, her large eyes growing dim. "'What are you sighing for, Bela?' I would ask her. 'Are you sad?' "'No!' "'Do you want anything?' "'No!' "'You are pining for your kinsfolk?' "'I have none!' "Sometimes for whole days not a word could be drawn from her but 'Yes' and 'No.' "So I straightway proceeded to talk to Pechorin about her." CHAPTER IX "'LISTEN, Maksim Maksimych,' said Pechorin. 'Mine is an unfortunate disposition; whether it is the result of my upbringing or whether it is innate--I know not. I only know this, that if I am the cause of unhappiness in others I myself am no less unhappy. Of course, that is a poor consolation to them--only the fact remains that such is the case. In my early youth, from the moment I ceased to be under the guardianship of my relations, I began madly to enjoy all the pleasures which money could buy--and, of course, such pleasures became irksome to me. Then I launched out into the world of fashion--and that, too, soon palled upon me. I fell in love with fashionable beauties and was loved by them, but my imagination and egoism alone were aroused; my heart remained empty... I began to read, to study--but sciences also became utterly wearisome to me. I saw that neither fame nor happiness depends on them in the least, because the happiest people are the uneducated, and fame is good fortune, to attain which you have only to be smart. Then I grew bored... Soon afterwards I was transferred to the Caucasus; and that was the happiest time of my life. I hoped that under the bullets of the Chechenes boredom could not exist--a vain hope! In a month I grew so accustomed to the buzzing of the bullets and to the proximity of death that, to tell the truth, I paid more attention to the gnats--and I became more bored than ever, because I had lost what was almost my last hope. When I saw Bela in my own house; when, for the first time, I held her on my knee and kissed her black locks, I, fool that I was, thought that she was an angel sent to me by sympathetic fate... Again I was mistaken; the love of a savage is little better than that of your lady of quality, the barbaric ignorance and simplicity of the one weary you as much as the coquetry of the other. I am not saying that I do not love her still; I am grateful to her for a few fairly sweet moments; I would give my life for her--only I am bored with her... Whether I am a fool or a villain I know not; but this is certain, I am also most deserving of pity--perhaps more than she. My soul has been spoiled by the world, my imagination is unquiet, my heart insatiate. To me everything is of little moment. I become as easily accustomed to grief as to joy, and my life grows emptier day by day. One expedient only is left to me--travel. "'As soon as I can, I shall set off--but not to Europe. Heaven forfend! I shall go to America, to Arabia, to India--perchance I shall die somewhere on the way. At any rate, I am convinced that, thanks to storms and bad roads, that last consolation will not quickly be exhausted!' "For a long time he went on speaking thus, and his words have remained stamped upon my memory, because it was the first time that I had heard such things from a man of five-and-twenty--and Heaven grant it may be the last. Isn't it astonishing? Tell me, please," continued the staff-captain, appealing to me. "You used to live in the Capital, I think, and that not so very long ago. Is it possible that the young men there are all like that?" I replied that there were a good many people who used the same sort of language, that, probably, there might even be some who spoke in all sincerity; that disillusionment, moreover, like all other vogues, having had its beginning in the higher strata of society, had descended to the lower, where it was being worn threadbare, and that, now, those who were really and truly bored strove to conceal their misfortune as if it were a vice. The staff-captain did not understand these subtleties, shook his head, and smiled slyly. "Anyhow, I suppose it was the French who introduced the fashion?" "No, the English." "Aha, there you are!" he answered. "They always have been arrant drunkards, you know!" Involuntarily I recalled to mind a certain lady, living in Moscow, who used to maintain that Byron was nothing more nor less than a drunkard. However, the staff-captain's observation was more excusable; in order to abstain from strong drink, he naturally endeavoured to convince himself that all the misfortunes in the world are the result of drunkenness. CHAPTER X MEANWHILE the staff-captain continued his story. "Kazbich never put in an appearance again; but somehow--I don't know why--I could not get the idea out of my head that he had had a reason for coming, and that some mischievous scheme was in his mind. "Well, one day Pechorin tried to persuade me to go boar-hunting with him. For a long time I refused. What novelty was a wild boar to me? "However, off he dragged me, all the same. We took four or five soldiers and set out early in the morning. Up till ten o'clock we scurried about the reeds and the forest--there wasn't a wild beast to be found! "'I say, oughtn't we to be going back?' I said. 'What's the use of sticking at it? It is evident enough that we have happened on an unlucky day!' "But, in spite of heat and fatigue, Pechorin didn't like to return empty-handed... That is just the kind of man he was; whatever he set his heart on he had to have--evidently, in his childhood, he had been spoiled by an indulgent mother. At last, at midday, we discovered one of those cursed wild boars--Bang! Bang!--No good!--Off it went into the reeds. That was an unlucky day, to be sure!... So, after a short rest, we set off homeward... "We rode in silence, side by side, giving the horses their head. We had almost reached the fortress, and only the brushwood concealed it from view. Suddenly a shot rang out... We glanced at each other, both struck with the selfsame suspicion... We galloped headlong in the direction of the shot, looked, and saw the soldiers clustered together on the rampart and pointing towards a field, along which a rider was flying at full speed, holding something white across his saddle. Grigori Aleksandrovich yelled like any Chechene, whipped his gun from its cover, and gave chase--I after him. "Luckily, thanks to our unsuccessful hunt, our horses were not jaded; they strained under the saddle, and with every moment we drew nearer and nearer... At length I recognised Kazbich, only I could not make out what it was that he was holding in front of him. "Then I drew level with Pechorin and shouted to him: "'It is Kazbich!' "He looked at me, nodded, and struck his horse with his whip. "At last we were within gunshot of Kazbich. Whether it was that his horse was jaded or not so good as ours, I don't know, but, in spite of all his efforts, it did not get along very fast. I fancy at that moment he remembered his Karagyoz! "I looked at Pechorin. He was taking aim as he galloped... "'Don't shoot,' I cried. 'Save the shot! We will catch up with him as it is.' "Oh, these young men! Always taking fire at the wrong moment! The shot rang out and the bullet broke one of the horse's hind legs. It gave a few fiery leaps forward, stumbled, and fell to its knees. Kazbich sprang off, and then we perceived that it was a woman he was holding in his arms--a woman wrapped in a veil. It was Bela--poor Bela! He shouted something to us in his own language and raised his dagger over her... Delay was useless; I fired in my turn, at haphazard. Probably the bullet struck him in the shoulder, because he dropped his hand suddenly. When the smoke cleared off, we could see the wounded horse lying on the ground and Bela beside it; but Kazbich, his gun flung away, was clambering like a cat up the cliff, through the brushwood. I should have liked to have brought him down from there--but I hadn't a charge ready. We jumped off our horses and rushed to Bela. Poor girl! She was lying motionless, and the blood was pouring in streams from her wound. The villain! If he had struck her to the heart--well and good, everything would at least have been finished there and then; but to stab her in the back like that--the scoundrel! She was unconscious. We tore the veil into strips and bound up the wound as tightly as we could. In vain Pechorin kissed her cold lips--it was impossible to bring her to. "Pechorin mounted; I lifted Bela from the ground and somehow managed to place her before him on his saddle; he put his arm round her and we rode back. "'Look here, Maksim Maksimych,' said Grigori Aleksandrovich, after a few moments of silence. 'We will never bring her in alive like this.' "'True!' I said, and we put our horses to a full gallop." CHAPTER XI "A CROWD was awaiting us at the fortress gate. Carefully we carried the wounded girl to Pechorin's quarters, and then we sent for the doctor. The latter was drunk, but he came, examined the wound, and announced that she could not live more than a day. He was mistaken, though." "She recovered?" I asked the staff-captain, seizing him by the arm, and involuntarily rejoicing. "No," he replied, "but the doctor was so far mistaken that she lived two days longer." "Explain, though, how Kazbich made off with her!" "It was like this: in spite of Pechorin's prohibition, she went out of the fortress and down to the river. It was a very hot day, you know, and she sat on a rock and dipped her feet in the water. Up crept Kazbich, pounced upon her, silenced her, and dragged her into the bushes. Then he sprang on his horse and made off. In the meantime she succeeded in crying out, the sentries took the alarm, fired, but wide of the mark; and thereupon we arrived on the scene." "But what did Kazbich want to carry her off for?" "Good gracious! Why, everyone knows these Circassians are a race of thieves; they can't keep their hands off anything that is left lying about! They may not want a thing, but they will steal it, for all that. Still, you mustn't be too hard on them. And, besides, he had been in love with her for a long time." "And Bela died?" "Yes, she died, but she suffered for a long time, and we were fairly knocked up with her, I can tell you. About ten o'clock in the evening she came to herself. We were sitting by her bed. As soon as ever she opened her eyes she began to call Pechorin. "'I am here beside you, my janechka' (that is, 'my darling'), he answered, taking her by the hand. "'I shall die,' she said. "We began to comfort her, telling her that the doctor had promised infallibly to cure her. She shook her little head and turned to the wall--she did not want to die!... "At night she became delirious, her head burned, at times a feverish paroxysm convulsed her whole body. She talked incoherently about her father, her brother; she yearned for the mountains, for her home... Then she spoke of Pechorin also, called him various fond names, or reproached him for having ceased to love his janechka. "He listened to her in silence, his head sunk in his hands; but yet, during the whole time, I did not notice a single tear-drop on his lashes. I do not know whether he was actually unable to weep or was mastering himself; but for my part I have never seen anything more pitiful. "Towards morning the delirium passed off. For an hour or so she lay motionless, pale, and so weak that it was hardly possible to observe that she was breathing. After that she grew better and began to talk: only about what, think you? Such thoughts come only to the dying!... She lamented that she was not a Christian, that in the other world her soul would never meet the soul of Grigori Aleksandrovich, and that in Paradise another woman would be his companion. The thought occurred to me to baptize her before her death. I told her my idea; she looked at me undecidedly, and for a long time was unable to utter a word. Finally she answered that she would die in the faith in which she had been born. A whole day passed thus. What a change that day made in her! Her pale cheeks fell in, her eyes grew ever so large, her lips burned. She felt a consuming heat within her, as though a red-hot blade was piercing her breast. "The second night came on. We did not close our eyes or leave the bedside. She suffered terribly, and groaned; and directly the pain began to abate she endeavoured to assure Grigori Aleksandrovich that she felt better, tried to persuade him to go to bed, kissed his hand and would not let it out of hers. Before the morning she began to feel the death agony and to toss about. She knocked the bandage off, and the blood flowed afresh. When the wound was bound up again she grew quiet for a moment and begged Pechorin to kiss her. He fell on his knees beside the bed, raised her head from the pillow, and pressed his lips to hers--which were growing cold. She threw her trembling arms closely round his neck, as if with that kiss she wished to yield up her soul to him.--No, she did well to die! Why, what would have become of her if Grigori Aleksandrovich had abandoned her? And that is what would have happened, sooner or later. "During half the following day she was calm, silent and docile, however much the doctor tortured her with his fomentations and mixtures. "'Good heavens!' I said to him, 'you know you said yourself that she was certain to die, so what is the good of all these preparations of yours?' "'Even so, it is better to do all this,' he replied, 'so that I may have an easy conscience.' "A pretty conscience, forsooth! "After midday Bela began to suffer from thirst. We opened the windows, but it was hotter outside than in the room; we placed ice round the bed--all to no purpose. I knew that that intolerable thirst was a sign of the approaching end, and I told Pechorin so. "'Water, water!' she said in a hoarse voice, raising herself up from the bed. "Pechorin turned pale as a sheet, seized a glass, filled it, and gave it to her. I covered my eyes with my hands and began to say a prayer--I can't remember what... Yes, my friend, many a time have I seen people die in hospitals or on the field of battle, but this was something altogether different! Still, this one thing grieves me, I must confess: she died without even once calling me to mind. Yet I loved her, I should think, like a father!... Well, God forgive her!... And, to tell the truth, what am I that she should have remembered me when she was dying?... "As soon as she had drunk the water, she grew easier--but in about three minutes she breathed her last! We put a looking-glass to her lips--it was undimmed! "I led Pechorin from the room, and we went on to the fortress rampart. For a long time we walked side by side, to and fro, speaking not a word and with our hands clasped behind our backs. His face expressed nothing out of the common--and that vexed me. Had I been in his place, I should have died of grief. At length he sat down on the ground in the shade and began to draw something in the sand with his stick. More for form's sake than anything, you know, I tried to console him and began to talk. He raised his head and burst into a laugh! At that laugh a cold shudder ran through me... I went away to order a coffin. "I confess it was partly to distract my thoughts that I busied myself in that way. I possessed a little piece of Circassian stuff, and I | cruelly | How many times the word 'cruelly' appears in the text? | 0 |
versts in two hours! Meanwhile the clouds had descended, hail and snow fell; the wind, bursting into the ravines, howled and whistled like Nightingale the Robber. [16] Soon the stone cross was hidden in the mist, the billows of which, in ever denser and more compact masses, rushed in from the east... Concerning that stone cross, by the way, there exists the strange, but widespread, tradition that it had been set up by the Emperor Peter the First when travelling through the Caucasus. In the first place, however, the Emperor went no farther than Daghestan; and, in the second place, there is an inscription in large letters on the cross itself, to the effect that it had been erected by order of General Ermolov, and that too in the year 1824. Nevertheless, the tradition has taken such firm root, in spite of the inscription, that really you do not know what to believe; the more so, as it is not the custom to believe inscriptions. To reach the station Kobi, we still had to descend about five versts, across ice-covered rocks and plashy snow. The horses were exhausted; we were freezing; the snowstorm droned with ever-increasing violence, exactly like the storms of our own northern land, only its wild melodies were sadder and more melancholy. "O Exile," I thought, "thou art weeping for thy wide, free steppes! There mayest thou unfold thy cold wings, but here thou art stifled and confined, like an eagle beating his wings, with a shriek, against the grating of his iron cage!" "A bad look out," said the staff-captain. "Look! There's nothing to be seen all round but mist and snow. At any moment we may tumble into an abyss or stick fast in a cleft; and a little lower down, I dare say, the Baidara has risen so high that there is no getting across it. Oh, this Asia, I know it! Like people, like rivers! There's no trusting them at all!" The drivers, shouting and cursing, belaboured the horses, which snorted, resisted obstinately, and refused to budge on any account, notwithstanding the eloquence of the whips. "Your honour," one of the drivers said to me at length, "you see, we will never reach Kobi to-day. Won't you give orders to turn to the left while we can? There is something black yonder on the slope--probably huts. Travellers always stop there in bad weather, sir. They say," he added, pointing to the Ossetes, "that they will lead us there if you will give them a tip." "I know that, my friend, I know that without your telling me," said the staff-captain. "Oh, these beasts! They are delighted to seize any pretext for extorting a tip!" "You must confess, however," I said, "that we should be worse off without them." "Just so, just so," he growled to himself. "I know them well--these guides! They scent out by instinct a chance of taking advantage of people. As if it was impossible to find the way without them!" Accordingly we turned aside to the left, and, somehow or other, after a good deal of trouble, made our way to the wretched shelter, which consisted of two huts built of stone slabs and rubble, surrounded by a wall of the same material. Our ragged hosts received us with alacrity. I learned afterwards that the Government supplies them with money and food upon condition that they put up travellers who are overtaken by storm. CHAPTER VIII "ALL is for the best," I said, sitting down close by the fire. "Now you will finish telling me your story about Bela. I am certain that what you have already told me was not the end of it." "Why are you so certain?" answered the staff-captain, winking and smiling slyly. "Because things don't happen like that. A story with such an unusual beginning must also have an unusual ending." "You have guessed, of course"... "I am very glad to hear it." "It is all very well for you to be glad, but, indeed, it makes me sad when I think of it. Bela was a splendid girl. In the end I grew accustomed to her just as if she had been my own daughter, and she loved me. I must tell you that I have no family. I have had no news of my father and mother for twelve years or so, and, in my earlier days, I never thought of providing myself with a wife--and now, you know, it wouldn't do. So I was glad to have found someone to spoil. She used to sing to us or dance the Lezginka. [17].. And what a dancer she was! I have seen our own ladies in provincial society; and on one occasion, sir, about twenty years ago, I was even in the Nobles' Club at Moscow--but was there a woman to be compared with her? Not one! Grigori Aleksandrovich dressed her up like a doll, petted and pampered her, and it was simply astonishing to see how pretty she grew while she lived with us. The sunburn disappeared from her face and hands, and a rosy colour came into her cheeks... What a merry girl she was! Always making fun of me, the little rogue!... Heaven forgive her!" "And when you told her of her father's death?" "We kept it a secret from her for a long time, until she had grown accustomed to her position; and then, when she was told, she cried for a day or two and forgot all about it. "For four months or so everything went on as well as it possibly could. Grigori Aleksandrovich, as I think I have already mentioned, was passionately fond of hunting; he was always craving to be off into the forest after boars or wild goats--but now it would be as much as he would do to go beyond the fortress rampart. All at once, however, I saw that he was beginning again to have fits of abstraction, walking about his room with his hands clasped behind his back. One day after that, without telling anyone, he set off shooting. During the whole morning he was not to be seen; then the same thing happened another time, and so on--oftener and oftener... "'This looks bad!' I said to myself. 'Something must have come between them!' "One morning I paid them a visit--I can see it all in my mind's eye, as if it was happening now. Bela was sitting on the bed, wearing a black silk jacket, and looking rather pale and so sad that I was alarmed. "'Where is Pechorin?' I asked. "'Hunting.' "'When did he go--to-day?' "'She was silent, as if she found a difficulty in answering. "'No, he has been gone since yesterday,' she said at length, with a heavy sigh. "'Surely nothing has happened to him!' "'Yesterday I thought and thought the whole day,' she answered through her tears; 'I imagined all sorts of misfortunes. At one time I fancied that he had been wounded by a wild boar, at another time, that he had been carried off by a Chechene into the mountains... But, now, I have come to think that he no longer loves me.' "'In truth, my dear girl, you could not have imagined anything worse!' "She burst out crying; then, proudly raising her head, she wiped away the tears and continued: "'If he does not love me, then who prevents him sending me home? I am not putting any constraint on him. But, if things go on like this, I will go away myself--I am not a slave, I am a prince's daughter!'... "I tried to talk her over. "'Listen, Bela. You see it is impossible for him to stop in here with you for ever, as if he was sewn on to your petticoat. He is a young man and fond of hunting. Off he'll go, but you will find that he will come back; and, if you are going to be unhappy, you will soon make him tired of you.' "'True, true!' she said. 'I will be merry.' "And with a burst of laughter, she seized her tambourine, began to sing, dance, and gambol around me. But that did not last long either; she fell upon the bed again and buried her face in her hands. "What could I do with her? You know I have never been accustomed to the society of women. I thought and thought how to cheer her up, but couldn't hit on anything. For some time both of us remained silent... A most unpleasant situation, sir! "At length I said to her: "'Would you like us to go and take a walk on the rampart? The weather is splendid.' "This was in September, and indeed it was a wonderful day, bright and not too hot. The mountains could be seen as clearly as though they were but a hand's-breadth away. We went, and walked in silence to and fro along the rampart of the fortress. At length she sat down on the sward, and I sat beside her. In truth, now, it is funny to think of it all! I used to run after her just like a kind of children's nurse! "Our fortress was situated in a lofty position, and the view from the rampart was superb. On one side, the wide clearing, seamed by a few clefts, was bounded by the forest which stretched out to the very ridge of the mountains. Here and there, on the clearing, villages were to be seen sending forth their smoke, and there were droves of horses roaming about. On the other side flowed a tiny stream, and close to its banks came the dense undergrowth which covered the flinty heights joining the principal chain of the Caucasus. We sat in a corner of the bastion, so that we could see everything on both sides. Suddenly I perceived someone on a grey horse riding out of the forest; nearer and nearer he approached until finally he stopped on the far side of the river, about a hundred fathoms from us, and began to wheel his horse round and round like one possessed. 'Strange!' I thought. "'Look, look, Bela,' I said, 'you've got young eyes--what sort of a horseman is that? Who is it he has come to amuse?'... "'It is Kazbich!' she exclaimed after a glance. "'Ah, the robber! Come to laugh at us, has he?' "I looked closely, and sure enough it was Kazbich, with his swarthy face, and as ragged and dirty as ever. "'It is my father's horse!' said Bela, seizing my arm. "She was trembling like a leaf and her eyes were sparkling. "'Aha!' I said to myself. 'There is robber's blood in your veins still, my dear!' "'Come here,' I said to the sentry. 'Look to your gun and unhorse that gallant for me--and you shall have a silver ruble.' "'Very well, your honour, only he won't keep still.' "'Tell him to!' I said, with a laugh. "'Hey, friend!' cried the sentry, waving his hand. 'Wait a bit. What are you spinning round like a humming-top for?' "Kazbich halted and gave ear to the sentry--probably thinking that we were going to parley with him. Quite the contrary!... My grenadier took aim... Bang!... Missed!... Just as the powder flashed in the pan Kazbich jogged his horse, which gave a bound to one side. He stood up in his stirrups, shouted something in his own language, made a threatening gesture with his whip--and was off. "'Aren't you ashamed of yourself?' I said to the sentry. "'He has gone away to die, your honour,' he answered. 'There's no killing a man of that cursed race at one stroke.' "A quarter of an hour later Pechorin returned from hunting. Bela threw herself on his neck without a single complaint, without a single reproach for his lengthy absence!... Even I was angry with him by this time! "'Good heavens!' I said; 'why, I tell you, Kazbich was here on the other side of the river just a moment ago, and we shot at him. How easily you might have run up against him, you know! These mountaineers are a vindictive race! Do you suppose he does not guess that you gave Azamat some help? And I wager that he recognised Bela to-day! I know he was desperately fond of her a year ago--he told me so himself--and, if he had had any hope of getting together a proper bridegroom's gift, he would certainly have sought her in marriage.' "At this Pechorin became thoughtful. "'Yes,' he answered. 'We must be more cautious--Bela, from this day forth you mustn't walk on the rampart any more.' "In the evening I had a lengthy explanation with him. I was vexed that his feelings towards the poor girl had changed; to say nothing of his spending half the day hunting, his manner towards her had become cold. He rarely caressed her, and she was beginning perceptibly to pine away; her little face was becoming drawn, her large eyes growing dim. "'What are you sighing for, Bela?' I would ask her. 'Are you sad?' "'No!' "'Do you want anything?' "'No!' "'You are pining for your kinsfolk?' "'I have none!' "Sometimes for whole days not a word could be drawn from her but 'Yes' and 'No.' "So I straightway proceeded to talk to Pechorin about her." CHAPTER IX "'LISTEN, Maksim Maksimych,' said Pechorin. 'Mine is an unfortunate disposition; whether it is the result of my upbringing or whether it is innate--I know not. I only know this, that if I am the cause of unhappiness in others I myself am no less unhappy. Of course, that is a poor consolation to them--only the fact remains that such is the case. In my early youth, from the moment I ceased to be under the guardianship of my relations, I began madly to enjoy all the pleasures which money could buy--and, of course, such pleasures became irksome to me. Then I launched out into the world of fashion--and that, too, soon palled upon me. I fell in love with fashionable beauties and was loved by them, but my imagination and egoism alone were aroused; my heart remained empty... I began to read, to study--but sciences also became utterly wearisome to me. I saw that neither fame nor happiness depends on them in the least, because the happiest people are the uneducated, and fame is good fortune, to attain which you have only to be smart. Then I grew bored... Soon afterwards I was transferred to the Caucasus; and that was the happiest time of my life. I hoped that under the bullets of the Chechenes boredom could not exist--a vain hope! In a month I grew so accustomed to the buzzing of the bullets and to the proximity of death that, to tell the truth, I paid more attention to the gnats--and I became more bored than ever, because I had lost what was almost my last hope. When I saw Bela in my own house; when, for the first time, I held her on my knee and kissed her black locks, I, fool that I was, thought that she was an angel sent to me by sympathetic fate... Again I was mistaken; the love of a savage is little better than that of your lady of quality, the barbaric ignorance and simplicity of the one weary you as much as the coquetry of the other. I am not saying that I do not love her still; I am grateful to her for a few fairly sweet moments; I would give my life for her--only I am bored with her... Whether I am a fool or a villain I know not; but this is certain, I am also most deserving of pity--perhaps more than she. My soul has been spoiled by the world, my imagination is unquiet, my heart insatiate. To me everything is of little moment. I become as easily accustomed to grief as to joy, and my life grows emptier day by day. One expedient only is left to me--travel. "'As soon as I can, I shall set off--but not to Europe. Heaven forfend! I shall go to America, to Arabia, to India--perchance I shall die somewhere on the way. At any rate, I am convinced that, thanks to storms and bad roads, that last consolation will not quickly be exhausted!' "For a long time he went on speaking thus, and his words have remained stamped upon my memory, because it was the first time that I had heard such things from a man of five-and-twenty--and Heaven grant it may be the last. Isn't it astonishing? Tell me, please," continued the staff-captain, appealing to me. "You used to live in the Capital, I think, and that not so very long ago. Is it possible that the young men there are all like that?" I replied that there were a good many people who used the same sort of language, that, probably, there might even be some who spoke in all sincerity; that disillusionment, moreover, like all other vogues, having had its beginning in the higher strata of society, had descended to the lower, where it was being worn threadbare, and that, now, those who were really and truly bored strove to conceal their misfortune as if it were a vice. The staff-captain did not understand these subtleties, shook his head, and smiled slyly. "Anyhow, I suppose it was the French who introduced the fashion?" "No, the English." "Aha, there you are!" he answered. "They always have been arrant drunkards, you know!" Involuntarily I recalled to mind a certain lady, living in Moscow, who used to maintain that Byron was nothing more nor less than a drunkard. However, the staff-captain's observation was more excusable; in order to abstain from strong drink, he naturally endeavoured to convince himself that all the misfortunes in the world are the result of drunkenness. CHAPTER X MEANWHILE the staff-captain continued his story. "Kazbich never put in an appearance again; but somehow--I don't know why--I could not get the idea out of my head that he had had a reason for coming, and that some mischievous scheme was in his mind. "Well, one day Pechorin tried to persuade me to go boar-hunting with him. For a long time I refused. What novelty was a wild boar to me? "However, off he dragged me, all the same. We took four or five soldiers and set out early in the morning. Up till ten o'clock we scurried about the reeds and the forest--there wasn't a wild beast to be found! "'I say, oughtn't we to be going back?' I said. 'What's the use of sticking at it? It is evident enough that we have happened on an unlucky day!' "But, in spite of heat and fatigue, Pechorin didn't like to return empty-handed... That is just the kind of man he was; whatever he set his heart on he had to have--evidently, in his childhood, he had been spoiled by an indulgent mother. At last, at midday, we discovered one of those cursed wild boars--Bang! Bang!--No good!--Off it went into the reeds. That was an unlucky day, to be sure!... So, after a short rest, we set off homeward... "We rode in silence, side by side, giving the horses their head. We had almost reached the fortress, and only the brushwood concealed it from view. Suddenly a shot rang out... We glanced at each other, both struck with the selfsame suspicion... We galloped headlong in the direction of the shot, looked, and saw the soldiers clustered together on the rampart and pointing towards a field, along which a rider was flying at full speed, holding something white across his saddle. Grigori Aleksandrovich yelled like any Chechene, whipped his gun from its cover, and gave chase--I after him. "Luckily, thanks to our unsuccessful hunt, our horses were not jaded; they strained under the saddle, and with every moment we drew nearer and nearer... At length I recognised Kazbich, only I could not make out what it was that he was holding in front of him. "Then I drew level with Pechorin and shouted to him: "'It is Kazbich!' "He looked at me, nodded, and struck his horse with his whip. "At last we were within gunshot of Kazbich. Whether it was that his horse was jaded or not so good as ours, I don't know, but, in spite of all his efforts, it did not get along very fast. I fancy at that moment he remembered his Karagyoz! "I looked at Pechorin. He was taking aim as he galloped... "'Don't shoot,' I cried. 'Save the shot! We will catch up with him as it is.' "Oh, these young men! Always taking fire at the wrong moment! The shot rang out and the bullet broke one of the horse's hind legs. It gave a few fiery leaps forward, stumbled, and fell to its knees. Kazbich sprang off, and then we perceived that it was a woman he was holding in his arms--a woman wrapped in a veil. It was Bela--poor Bela! He shouted something to us in his own language and raised his dagger over her... Delay was useless; I fired in my turn, at haphazard. Probably the bullet struck him in the shoulder, because he dropped his hand suddenly. When the smoke cleared off, we could see the wounded horse lying on the ground and Bela beside it; but Kazbich, his gun flung away, was clambering like a cat up the cliff, through the brushwood. I should have liked to have brought him down from there--but I hadn't a charge ready. We jumped off our horses and rushed to Bela. Poor girl! She was lying motionless, and the blood was pouring in streams from her wound. The villain! If he had struck her to the heart--well and good, everything would at least have been finished there and then; but to stab her in the back like that--the scoundrel! She was unconscious. We tore the veil into strips and bound up the wound as tightly as we could. In vain Pechorin kissed her cold lips--it was impossible to bring her to. "Pechorin mounted; I lifted Bela from the ground and somehow managed to place her before him on his saddle; he put his arm round her and we rode back. "'Look here, Maksim Maksimych,' said Grigori Aleksandrovich, after a few moments of silence. 'We will never bring her in alive like this.' "'True!' I said, and we put our horses to a full gallop." CHAPTER XI "A CROWD was awaiting us at the fortress gate. Carefully we carried the wounded girl to Pechorin's quarters, and then we sent for the doctor. The latter was drunk, but he came, examined the wound, and announced that she could not live more than a day. He was mistaken, though." "She recovered?" I asked the staff-captain, seizing him by the arm, and involuntarily rejoicing. "No," he replied, "but the doctor was so far mistaken that she lived two days longer." "Explain, though, how Kazbich made off with her!" "It was like this: in spite of Pechorin's prohibition, she went out of the fortress and down to the river. It was a very hot day, you know, and she sat on a rock and dipped her feet in the water. Up crept Kazbich, pounced upon her, silenced her, and dragged her into the bushes. Then he sprang on his horse and made off. In the meantime she succeeded in crying out, the sentries took the alarm, fired, but wide of the mark; and thereupon we arrived on the scene." "But what did Kazbich want to carry her off for?" "Good gracious! Why, everyone knows these Circassians are a race of thieves; they can't keep their hands off anything that is left lying about! They may not want a thing, but they will steal it, for all that. Still, you mustn't be too hard on them. And, besides, he had been in love with her for a long time." "And Bela died?" "Yes, she died, but she suffered for a long time, and we were fairly knocked up with her, I can tell you. About ten o'clock in the evening she came to herself. We were sitting by her bed. As soon as ever she opened her eyes she began to call Pechorin. "'I am here beside you, my janechka' (that is, 'my darling'), he answered, taking her by the hand. "'I shall die,' she said. "We began to comfort her, telling her that the doctor had promised infallibly to cure her. She shook her little head and turned to the wall--she did not want to die!... "At night she became delirious, her head burned, at times a feverish paroxysm convulsed her whole body. She talked incoherently about her father, her brother; she yearned for the mountains, for her home... Then she spoke of Pechorin also, called him various fond names, or reproached him for having ceased to love his janechka. "He listened to her in silence, his head sunk in his hands; but yet, during the whole time, I did not notice a single tear-drop on his lashes. I do not know whether he was actually unable to weep or was mastering himself; but for my part I have never seen anything more pitiful. "Towards morning the delirium passed off. For an hour or so she lay motionless, pale, and so weak that it was hardly possible to observe that she was breathing. After that she grew better and began to talk: only about what, think you? Such thoughts come only to the dying!... She lamented that she was not a Christian, that in the other world her soul would never meet the soul of Grigori Aleksandrovich, and that in Paradise another woman would be his companion. The thought occurred to me to baptize her before her death. I told her my idea; she looked at me undecidedly, and for a long time was unable to utter a word. Finally she answered that she would die in the faith in which she had been born. A whole day passed thus. What a change that day made in her! Her pale cheeks fell in, her eyes grew ever so large, her lips burned. She felt a consuming heat within her, as though a red-hot blade was piercing her breast. "The second night came on. We did not close our eyes or leave the bedside. She suffered terribly, and groaned; and directly the pain began to abate she endeavoured to assure Grigori Aleksandrovich that she felt better, tried to persuade him to go to bed, kissed his hand and would not let it out of hers. Before the morning she began to feel the death agony and to toss about. She knocked the bandage off, and the blood flowed afresh. When the wound was bound up again she grew quiet for a moment and begged Pechorin to kiss her. He fell on his knees beside the bed, raised her head from the pillow, and pressed his lips to hers--which were growing cold. She threw her trembling arms closely round his neck, as if with that kiss she wished to yield up her soul to him.--No, she did well to die! Why, what would have become of her if Grigori Aleksandrovich had abandoned her? And that is what would have happened, sooner or later. "During half the following day she was calm, silent and docile, however much the doctor tortured her with his fomentations and mixtures. "'Good heavens!' I said to him, 'you know you said yourself that she was certain to die, so what is the good of all these preparations of yours?' "'Even so, it is better to do all this,' he replied, 'so that I may have an easy conscience.' "A pretty conscience, forsooth! "After midday Bela began to suffer from thirst. We opened the windows, but it was hotter outside than in the room; we placed ice round the bed--all to no purpose. I knew that that intolerable thirst was a sign of the approaching end, and I told Pechorin so. "'Water, water!' she said in a hoarse voice, raising herself up from the bed. "Pechorin turned pale as a sheet, seized a glass, filled it, and gave it to her. I covered my eyes with my hands and began to say a prayer--I can't remember what... Yes, my friend, many a time have I seen people die in hospitals or on the field of battle, but this was something altogether different! Still, this one thing grieves me, I must confess: she died without even once calling me to mind. Yet I loved her, I should think, like a father!... Well, God forgive her!... And, to tell the truth, what am I that she should have remembered me when she was dying?... "As soon as she had drunk the water, she grew easier--but in about three minutes she breathed her last! We put a looking-glass to her lips--it was undimmed! "I led Pechorin from the room, and we went on to the fortress rampart. For a long time we walked side by side, to and fro, speaking not a word and with our hands clasped behind our backs. His face expressed nothing out of the common--and that vexed me. Had I been in his place, I should have died of grief. At length he sat down on the ground in the shade and began to draw something in the sand with his stick. More for form's sake than anything, you know, I tried to console him and began to talk. He raised his head and burst into a laugh! At that laugh a cold shudder ran through me... I went away to order a coffin. "I confess it was partly to distract my thoughts that I busied myself in that way. I possessed a little piece of Circassian stuff, and I | necessary | How many times the word 'necessary' appears in the text? | 0 |
versts in two hours! Meanwhile the clouds had descended, hail and snow fell; the wind, bursting into the ravines, howled and whistled like Nightingale the Robber. [16] Soon the stone cross was hidden in the mist, the billows of which, in ever denser and more compact masses, rushed in from the east... Concerning that stone cross, by the way, there exists the strange, but widespread, tradition that it had been set up by the Emperor Peter the First when travelling through the Caucasus. In the first place, however, the Emperor went no farther than Daghestan; and, in the second place, there is an inscription in large letters on the cross itself, to the effect that it had been erected by order of General Ermolov, and that too in the year 1824. Nevertheless, the tradition has taken such firm root, in spite of the inscription, that really you do not know what to believe; the more so, as it is not the custom to believe inscriptions. To reach the station Kobi, we still had to descend about five versts, across ice-covered rocks and plashy snow. The horses were exhausted; we were freezing; the snowstorm droned with ever-increasing violence, exactly like the storms of our own northern land, only its wild melodies were sadder and more melancholy. "O Exile," I thought, "thou art weeping for thy wide, free steppes! There mayest thou unfold thy cold wings, but here thou art stifled and confined, like an eagle beating his wings, with a shriek, against the grating of his iron cage!" "A bad look out," said the staff-captain. "Look! There's nothing to be seen all round but mist and snow. At any moment we may tumble into an abyss or stick fast in a cleft; and a little lower down, I dare say, the Baidara has risen so high that there is no getting across it. Oh, this Asia, I know it! Like people, like rivers! There's no trusting them at all!" The drivers, shouting and cursing, belaboured the horses, which snorted, resisted obstinately, and refused to budge on any account, notwithstanding the eloquence of the whips. "Your honour," one of the drivers said to me at length, "you see, we will never reach Kobi to-day. Won't you give orders to turn to the left while we can? There is something black yonder on the slope--probably huts. Travellers always stop there in bad weather, sir. They say," he added, pointing to the Ossetes, "that they will lead us there if you will give them a tip." "I know that, my friend, I know that without your telling me," said the staff-captain. "Oh, these beasts! They are delighted to seize any pretext for extorting a tip!" "You must confess, however," I said, "that we should be worse off without them." "Just so, just so," he growled to himself. "I know them well--these guides! They scent out by instinct a chance of taking advantage of people. As if it was impossible to find the way without them!" Accordingly we turned aside to the left, and, somehow or other, after a good deal of trouble, made our way to the wretched shelter, which consisted of two huts built of stone slabs and rubble, surrounded by a wall of the same material. Our ragged hosts received us with alacrity. I learned afterwards that the Government supplies them with money and food upon condition that they put up travellers who are overtaken by storm. CHAPTER VIII "ALL is for the best," I said, sitting down close by the fire. "Now you will finish telling me your story about Bela. I am certain that what you have already told me was not the end of it." "Why are you so certain?" answered the staff-captain, winking and smiling slyly. "Because things don't happen like that. A story with such an unusual beginning must also have an unusual ending." "You have guessed, of course"... "I am very glad to hear it." "It is all very well for you to be glad, but, indeed, it makes me sad when I think of it. Bela was a splendid girl. In the end I grew accustomed to her just as if she had been my own daughter, and she loved me. I must tell you that I have no family. I have had no news of my father and mother for twelve years or so, and, in my earlier days, I never thought of providing myself with a wife--and now, you know, it wouldn't do. So I was glad to have found someone to spoil. She used to sing to us or dance the Lezginka. [17].. And what a dancer she was! I have seen our own ladies in provincial society; and on one occasion, sir, about twenty years ago, I was even in the Nobles' Club at Moscow--but was there a woman to be compared with her? Not one! Grigori Aleksandrovich dressed her up like a doll, petted and pampered her, and it was simply astonishing to see how pretty she grew while she lived with us. The sunburn disappeared from her face and hands, and a rosy colour came into her cheeks... What a merry girl she was! Always making fun of me, the little rogue!... Heaven forgive her!" "And when you told her of her father's death?" "We kept it a secret from her for a long time, until she had grown accustomed to her position; and then, when she was told, she cried for a day or two and forgot all about it. "For four months or so everything went on as well as it possibly could. Grigori Aleksandrovich, as I think I have already mentioned, was passionately fond of hunting; he was always craving to be off into the forest after boars or wild goats--but now it would be as much as he would do to go beyond the fortress rampart. All at once, however, I saw that he was beginning again to have fits of abstraction, walking about his room with his hands clasped behind his back. One day after that, without telling anyone, he set off shooting. During the whole morning he was not to be seen; then the same thing happened another time, and so on--oftener and oftener... "'This looks bad!' I said to myself. 'Something must have come between them!' "One morning I paid them a visit--I can see it all in my mind's eye, as if it was happening now. Bela was sitting on the bed, wearing a black silk jacket, and looking rather pale and so sad that I was alarmed. "'Where is Pechorin?' I asked. "'Hunting.' "'When did he go--to-day?' "'She was silent, as if she found a difficulty in answering. "'No, he has been gone since yesterday,' she said at length, with a heavy sigh. "'Surely nothing has happened to him!' "'Yesterday I thought and thought the whole day,' she answered through her tears; 'I imagined all sorts of misfortunes. At one time I fancied that he had been wounded by a wild boar, at another time, that he had been carried off by a Chechene into the mountains... But, now, I have come to think that he no longer loves me.' "'In truth, my dear girl, you could not have imagined anything worse!' "She burst out crying; then, proudly raising her head, she wiped away the tears and continued: "'If he does not love me, then who prevents him sending me home? I am not putting any constraint on him. But, if things go on like this, I will go away myself--I am not a slave, I am a prince's daughter!'... "I tried to talk her over. "'Listen, Bela. You see it is impossible for him to stop in here with you for ever, as if he was sewn on to your petticoat. He is a young man and fond of hunting. Off he'll go, but you will find that he will come back; and, if you are going to be unhappy, you will soon make him tired of you.' "'True, true!' she said. 'I will be merry.' "And with a burst of laughter, she seized her tambourine, began to sing, dance, and gambol around me. But that did not last long either; she fell upon the bed again and buried her face in her hands. "What could I do with her? You know I have never been accustomed to the society of women. I thought and thought how to cheer her up, but couldn't hit on anything. For some time both of us remained silent... A most unpleasant situation, sir! "At length I said to her: "'Would you like us to go and take a walk on the rampart? The weather is splendid.' "This was in September, and indeed it was a wonderful day, bright and not too hot. The mountains could be seen as clearly as though they were but a hand's-breadth away. We went, and walked in silence to and fro along the rampart of the fortress. At length she sat down on the sward, and I sat beside her. In truth, now, it is funny to think of it all! I used to run after her just like a kind of children's nurse! "Our fortress was situated in a lofty position, and the view from the rampart was superb. On one side, the wide clearing, seamed by a few clefts, was bounded by the forest which stretched out to the very ridge of the mountains. Here and there, on the clearing, villages were to be seen sending forth their smoke, and there were droves of horses roaming about. On the other side flowed a tiny stream, and close to its banks came the dense undergrowth which covered the flinty heights joining the principal chain of the Caucasus. We sat in a corner of the bastion, so that we could see everything on both sides. Suddenly I perceived someone on a grey horse riding out of the forest; nearer and nearer he approached until finally he stopped on the far side of the river, about a hundred fathoms from us, and began to wheel his horse round and round like one possessed. 'Strange!' I thought. "'Look, look, Bela,' I said, 'you've got young eyes--what sort of a horseman is that? Who is it he has come to amuse?'... "'It is Kazbich!' she exclaimed after a glance. "'Ah, the robber! Come to laugh at us, has he?' "I looked closely, and sure enough it was Kazbich, with his swarthy face, and as ragged and dirty as ever. "'It is my father's horse!' said Bela, seizing my arm. "She was trembling like a leaf and her eyes were sparkling. "'Aha!' I said to myself. 'There is robber's blood in your veins still, my dear!' "'Come here,' I said to the sentry. 'Look to your gun and unhorse that gallant for me--and you shall have a silver ruble.' "'Very well, your honour, only he won't keep still.' "'Tell him to!' I said, with a laugh. "'Hey, friend!' cried the sentry, waving his hand. 'Wait a bit. What are you spinning round like a humming-top for?' "Kazbich halted and gave ear to the sentry--probably thinking that we were going to parley with him. Quite the contrary!... My grenadier took aim... Bang!... Missed!... Just as the powder flashed in the pan Kazbich jogged his horse, which gave a bound to one side. He stood up in his stirrups, shouted something in his own language, made a threatening gesture with his whip--and was off. "'Aren't you ashamed of yourself?' I said to the sentry. "'He has gone away to die, your honour,' he answered. 'There's no killing a man of that cursed race at one stroke.' "A quarter of an hour later Pechorin returned from hunting. Bela threw herself on his neck without a single complaint, without a single reproach for his lengthy absence!... Even I was angry with him by this time! "'Good heavens!' I said; 'why, I tell you, Kazbich was here on the other side of the river just a moment ago, and we shot at him. How easily you might have run up against him, you know! These mountaineers are a vindictive race! Do you suppose he does not guess that you gave Azamat some help? And I wager that he recognised Bela to-day! I know he was desperately fond of her a year ago--he told me so himself--and, if he had had any hope of getting together a proper bridegroom's gift, he would certainly have sought her in marriage.' "At this Pechorin became thoughtful. "'Yes,' he answered. 'We must be more cautious--Bela, from this day forth you mustn't walk on the rampart any more.' "In the evening I had a lengthy explanation with him. I was vexed that his feelings towards the poor girl had changed; to say nothing of his spending half the day hunting, his manner towards her had become cold. He rarely caressed her, and she was beginning perceptibly to pine away; her little face was becoming drawn, her large eyes growing dim. "'What are you sighing for, Bela?' I would ask her. 'Are you sad?' "'No!' "'Do you want anything?' "'No!' "'You are pining for your kinsfolk?' "'I have none!' "Sometimes for whole days not a word could be drawn from her but 'Yes' and 'No.' "So I straightway proceeded to talk to Pechorin about her." CHAPTER IX "'LISTEN, Maksim Maksimych,' said Pechorin. 'Mine is an unfortunate disposition; whether it is the result of my upbringing or whether it is innate--I know not. I only know this, that if I am the cause of unhappiness in others I myself am no less unhappy. Of course, that is a poor consolation to them--only the fact remains that such is the case. In my early youth, from the moment I ceased to be under the guardianship of my relations, I began madly to enjoy all the pleasures which money could buy--and, of course, such pleasures became irksome to me. Then I launched out into the world of fashion--and that, too, soon palled upon me. I fell in love with fashionable beauties and was loved by them, but my imagination and egoism alone were aroused; my heart remained empty... I began to read, to study--but sciences also became utterly wearisome to me. I saw that neither fame nor happiness depends on them in the least, because the happiest people are the uneducated, and fame is good fortune, to attain which you have only to be smart. Then I grew bored... Soon afterwards I was transferred to the Caucasus; and that was the happiest time of my life. I hoped that under the bullets of the Chechenes boredom could not exist--a vain hope! In a month I grew so accustomed to the buzzing of the bullets and to the proximity of death that, to tell the truth, I paid more attention to the gnats--and I became more bored than ever, because I had lost what was almost my last hope. When I saw Bela in my own house; when, for the first time, I held her on my knee and kissed her black locks, I, fool that I was, thought that she was an angel sent to me by sympathetic fate... Again I was mistaken; the love of a savage is little better than that of your lady of quality, the barbaric ignorance and simplicity of the one weary you as much as the coquetry of the other. I am not saying that I do not love her still; I am grateful to her for a few fairly sweet moments; I would give my life for her--only I am bored with her... Whether I am a fool or a villain I know not; but this is certain, I am also most deserving of pity--perhaps more than she. My soul has been spoiled by the world, my imagination is unquiet, my heart insatiate. To me everything is of little moment. I become as easily accustomed to grief as to joy, and my life grows emptier day by day. One expedient only is left to me--travel. "'As soon as I can, I shall set off--but not to Europe. Heaven forfend! I shall go to America, to Arabia, to India--perchance I shall die somewhere on the way. At any rate, I am convinced that, thanks to storms and bad roads, that last consolation will not quickly be exhausted!' "For a long time he went on speaking thus, and his words have remained stamped upon my memory, because it was the first time that I had heard such things from a man of five-and-twenty--and Heaven grant it may be the last. Isn't it astonishing? Tell me, please," continued the staff-captain, appealing to me. "You used to live in the Capital, I think, and that not so very long ago. Is it possible that the young men there are all like that?" I replied that there were a good many people who used the same sort of language, that, probably, there might even be some who spoke in all sincerity; that disillusionment, moreover, like all other vogues, having had its beginning in the higher strata of society, had descended to the lower, where it was being worn threadbare, and that, now, those who were really and truly bored strove to conceal their misfortune as if it were a vice. The staff-captain did not understand these subtleties, shook his head, and smiled slyly. "Anyhow, I suppose it was the French who introduced the fashion?" "No, the English." "Aha, there you are!" he answered. "They always have been arrant drunkards, you know!" Involuntarily I recalled to mind a certain lady, living in Moscow, who used to maintain that Byron was nothing more nor less than a drunkard. However, the staff-captain's observation was more excusable; in order to abstain from strong drink, he naturally endeavoured to convince himself that all the misfortunes in the world are the result of drunkenness. CHAPTER X MEANWHILE the staff-captain continued his story. "Kazbich never put in an appearance again; but somehow--I don't know why--I could not get the idea out of my head that he had had a reason for coming, and that some mischievous scheme was in his mind. "Well, one day Pechorin tried to persuade me to go boar-hunting with him. For a long time I refused. What novelty was a wild boar to me? "However, off he dragged me, all the same. We took four or five soldiers and set out early in the morning. Up till ten o'clock we scurried about the reeds and the forest--there wasn't a wild beast to be found! "'I say, oughtn't we to be going back?' I said. 'What's the use of sticking at it? It is evident enough that we have happened on an unlucky day!' "But, in spite of heat and fatigue, Pechorin didn't like to return empty-handed... That is just the kind of man he was; whatever he set his heart on he had to have--evidently, in his childhood, he had been spoiled by an indulgent mother. At last, at midday, we discovered one of those cursed wild boars--Bang! Bang!--No good!--Off it went into the reeds. That was an unlucky day, to be sure!... So, after a short rest, we set off homeward... "We rode in silence, side by side, giving the horses their head. We had almost reached the fortress, and only the brushwood concealed it from view. Suddenly a shot rang out... We glanced at each other, both struck with the selfsame suspicion... We galloped headlong in the direction of the shot, looked, and saw the soldiers clustered together on the rampart and pointing towards a field, along which a rider was flying at full speed, holding something white across his saddle. Grigori Aleksandrovich yelled like any Chechene, whipped his gun from its cover, and gave chase--I after him. "Luckily, thanks to our unsuccessful hunt, our horses were not jaded; they strained under the saddle, and with every moment we drew nearer and nearer... At length I recognised Kazbich, only I could not make out what it was that he was holding in front of him. "Then I drew level with Pechorin and shouted to him: "'It is Kazbich!' "He looked at me, nodded, and struck his horse with his whip. "At last we were within gunshot of Kazbich. Whether it was that his horse was jaded or not so good as ours, I don't know, but, in spite of all his efforts, it did not get along very fast. I fancy at that moment he remembered his Karagyoz! "I looked at Pechorin. He was taking aim as he galloped... "'Don't shoot,' I cried. 'Save the shot! We will catch up with him as it is.' "Oh, these young men! Always taking fire at the wrong moment! The shot rang out and the bullet broke one of the horse's hind legs. It gave a few fiery leaps forward, stumbled, and fell to its knees. Kazbich sprang off, and then we perceived that it was a woman he was holding in his arms--a woman wrapped in a veil. It was Bela--poor Bela! He shouted something to us in his own language and raised his dagger over her... Delay was useless; I fired in my turn, at haphazard. Probably the bullet struck him in the shoulder, because he dropped his hand suddenly. When the smoke cleared off, we could see the wounded horse lying on the ground and Bela beside it; but Kazbich, his gun flung away, was clambering like a cat up the cliff, through the brushwood. I should have liked to have brought him down from there--but I hadn't a charge ready. We jumped off our horses and rushed to Bela. Poor girl! She was lying motionless, and the blood was pouring in streams from her wound. The villain! If he had struck her to the heart--well and good, everything would at least have been finished there and then; but to stab her in the back like that--the scoundrel! She was unconscious. We tore the veil into strips and bound up the wound as tightly as we could. In vain Pechorin kissed her cold lips--it was impossible to bring her to. "Pechorin mounted; I lifted Bela from the ground and somehow managed to place her before him on his saddle; he put his arm round her and we rode back. "'Look here, Maksim Maksimych,' said Grigori Aleksandrovich, after a few moments of silence. 'We will never bring her in alive like this.' "'True!' I said, and we put our horses to a full gallop." CHAPTER XI "A CROWD was awaiting us at the fortress gate. Carefully we carried the wounded girl to Pechorin's quarters, and then we sent for the doctor. The latter was drunk, but he came, examined the wound, and announced that she could not live more than a day. He was mistaken, though." "She recovered?" I asked the staff-captain, seizing him by the arm, and involuntarily rejoicing. "No," he replied, "but the doctor was so far mistaken that she lived two days longer." "Explain, though, how Kazbich made off with her!" "It was like this: in spite of Pechorin's prohibition, she went out of the fortress and down to the river. It was a very hot day, you know, and she sat on a rock and dipped her feet in the water. Up crept Kazbich, pounced upon her, silenced her, and dragged her into the bushes. Then he sprang on his horse and made off. In the meantime she succeeded in crying out, the sentries took the alarm, fired, but wide of the mark; and thereupon we arrived on the scene." "But what did Kazbich want to carry her off for?" "Good gracious! Why, everyone knows these Circassians are a race of thieves; they can't keep their hands off anything that is left lying about! They may not want a thing, but they will steal it, for all that. Still, you mustn't be too hard on them. And, besides, he had been in love with her for a long time." "And Bela died?" "Yes, she died, but she suffered for a long time, and we were fairly knocked up with her, I can tell you. About ten o'clock in the evening she came to herself. We were sitting by her bed. As soon as ever she opened her eyes she began to call Pechorin. "'I am here beside you, my janechka' (that is, 'my darling'), he answered, taking her by the hand. "'I shall die,' she said. "We began to comfort her, telling her that the doctor had promised infallibly to cure her. She shook her little head and turned to the wall--she did not want to die!... "At night she became delirious, her head burned, at times a feverish paroxysm convulsed her whole body. She talked incoherently about her father, her brother; she yearned for the mountains, for her home... Then she spoke of Pechorin also, called him various fond names, or reproached him for having ceased to love his janechka. "He listened to her in silence, his head sunk in his hands; but yet, during the whole time, I did not notice a single tear-drop on his lashes. I do not know whether he was actually unable to weep or was mastering himself; but for my part I have never seen anything more pitiful. "Towards morning the delirium passed off. For an hour or so she lay motionless, pale, and so weak that it was hardly possible to observe that she was breathing. After that she grew better and began to talk: only about what, think you? Such thoughts come only to the dying!... She lamented that she was not a Christian, that in the other world her soul would never meet the soul of Grigori Aleksandrovich, and that in Paradise another woman would be his companion. The thought occurred to me to baptize her before her death. I told her my idea; she looked at me undecidedly, and for a long time was unable to utter a word. Finally she answered that she would die in the faith in which she had been born. A whole day passed thus. What a change that day made in her! Her pale cheeks fell in, her eyes grew ever so large, her lips burned. She felt a consuming heat within her, as though a red-hot blade was piercing her breast. "The second night came on. We did not close our eyes or leave the bedside. She suffered terribly, and groaned; and directly the pain began to abate she endeavoured to assure Grigori Aleksandrovich that she felt better, tried to persuade him to go to bed, kissed his hand and would not let it out of hers. Before the morning she began to feel the death agony and to toss about. She knocked the bandage off, and the blood flowed afresh. When the wound was bound up again she grew quiet for a moment and begged Pechorin to kiss her. He fell on his knees beside the bed, raised her head from the pillow, and pressed his lips to hers--which were growing cold. She threw her trembling arms closely round his neck, as if with that kiss she wished to yield up her soul to him.--No, she did well to die! Why, what would have become of her if Grigori Aleksandrovich had abandoned her? And that is what would have happened, sooner or later. "During half the following day she was calm, silent and docile, however much the doctor tortured her with his fomentations and mixtures. "'Good heavens!' I said to him, 'you know you said yourself that she was certain to die, so what is the good of all these preparations of yours?' "'Even so, it is better to do all this,' he replied, 'so that I may have an easy conscience.' "A pretty conscience, forsooth! "After midday Bela began to suffer from thirst. We opened the windows, but it was hotter outside than in the room; we placed ice round the bed--all to no purpose. I knew that that intolerable thirst was a sign of the approaching end, and I told Pechorin so. "'Water, water!' she said in a hoarse voice, raising herself up from the bed. "Pechorin turned pale as a sheet, seized a glass, filled it, and gave it to her. I covered my eyes with my hands and began to say a prayer--I can't remember what... Yes, my friend, many a time have I seen people die in hospitals or on the field of battle, but this was something altogether different! Still, this one thing grieves me, I must confess: she died without even once calling me to mind. Yet I loved her, I should think, like a father!... Well, God forgive her!... And, to tell the truth, what am I that she should have remembered me when she was dying?... "As soon as she had drunk the water, she grew easier--but in about three minutes she breathed her last! We put a looking-glass to her lips--it was undimmed! "I led Pechorin from the room, and we went on to the fortress rampart. For a long time we walked side by side, to and fro, speaking not a word and with our hands clasped behind our backs. His face expressed nothing out of the common--and that vexed me. Had I been in his place, I should have died of grief. At length he sat down on the ground in the shade and began to draw something in the sand with his stick. More for form's sake than anything, you know, I tried to console him and began to talk. He raised his head and burst into a laugh! At that laugh a cold shudder ran through me... I went away to order a coffin. "I confess it was partly to distract my thoughts that I busied myself in that way. I possessed a little piece of Circassian stuff, and I | happiest | How many times the word 'happiest' appears in the text? | 2 |
versts in two hours! Meanwhile the clouds had descended, hail and snow fell; the wind, bursting into the ravines, howled and whistled like Nightingale the Robber. [16] Soon the stone cross was hidden in the mist, the billows of which, in ever denser and more compact masses, rushed in from the east... Concerning that stone cross, by the way, there exists the strange, but widespread, tradition that it had been set up by the Emperor Peter the First when travelling through the Caucasus. In the first place, however, the Emperor went no farther than Daghestan; and, in the second place, there is an inscription in large letters on the cross itself, to the effect that it had been erected by order of General Ermolov, and that too in the year 1824. Nevertheless, the tradition has taken such firm root, in spite of the inscription, that really you do not know what to believe; the more so, as it is not the custom to believe inscriptions. To reach the station Kobi, we still had to descend about five versts, across ice-covered rocks and plashy snow. The horses were exhausted; we were freezing; the snowstorm droned with ever-increasing violence, exactly like the storms of our own northern land, only its wild melodies were sadder and more melancholy. "O Exile," I thought, "thou art weeping for thy wide, free steppes! There mayest thou unfold thy cold wings, but here thou art stifled and confined, like an eagle beating his wings, with a shriek, against the grating of his iron cage!" "A bad look out," said the staff-captain. "Look! There's nothing to be seen all round but mist and snow. At any moment we may tumble into an abyss or stick fast in a cleft; and a little lower down, I dare say, the Baidara has risen so high that there is no getting across it. Oh, this Asia, I know it! Like people, like rivers! There's no trusting them at all!" The drivers, shouting and cursing, belaboured the horses, which snorted, resisted obstinately, and refused to budge on any account, notwithstanding the eloquence of the whips. "Your honour," one of the drivers said to me at length, "you see, we will never reach Kobi to-day. Won't you give orders to turn to the left while we can? There is something black yonder on the slope--probably huts. Travellers always stop there in bad weather, sir. They say," he added, pointing to the Ossetes, "that they will lead us there if you will give them a tip." "I know that, my friend, I know that without your telling me," said the staff-captain. "Oh, these beasts! They are delighted to seize any pretext for extorting a tip!" "You must confess, however," I said, "that we should be worse off without them." "Just so, just so," he growled to himself. "I know them well--these guides! They scent out by instinct a chance of taking advantage of people. As if it was impossible to find the way without them!" Accordingly we turned aside to the left, and, somehow or other, after a good deal of trouble, made our way to the wretched shelter, which consisted of two huts built of stone slabs and rubble, surrounded by a wall of the same material. Our ragged hosts received us with alacrity. I learned afterwards that the Government supplies them with money and food upon condition that they put up travellers who are overtaken by storm. CHAPTER VIII "ALL is for the best," I said, sitting down close by the fire. "Now you will finish telling me your story about Bela. I am certain that what you have already told me was not the end of it." "Why are you so certain?" answered the staff-captain, winking and smiling slyly. "Because things don't happen like that. A story with such an unusual beginning must also have an unusual ending." "You have guessed, of course"... "I am very glad to hear it." "It is all very well for you to be glad, but, indeed, it makes me sad when I think of it. Bela was a splendid girl. In the end I grew accustomed to her just as if she had been my own daughter, and she loved me. I must tell you that I have no family. I have had no news of my father and mother for twelve years or so, and, in my earlier days, I never thought of providing myself with a wife--and now, you know, it wouldn't do. So I was glad to have found someone to spoil. She used to sing to us or dance the Lezginka. [17].. And what a dancer she was! I have seen our own ladies in provincial society; and on one occasion, sir, about twenty years ago, I was even in the Nobles' Club at Moscow--but was there a woman to be compared with her? Not one! Grigori Aleksandrovich dressed her up like a doll, petted and pampered her, and it was simply astonishing to see how pretty she grew while she lived with us. The sunburn disappeared from her face and hands, and a rosy colour came into her cheeks... What a merry girl she was! Always making fun of me, the little rogue!... Heaven forgive her!" "And when you told her of her father's death?" "We kept it a secret from her for a long time, until she had grown accustomed to her position; and then, when she was told, she cried for a day or two and forgot all about it. "For four months or so everything went on as well as it possibly could. Grigori Aleksandrovich, as I think I have already mentioned, was passionately fond of hunting; he was always craving to be off into the forest after boars or wild goats--but now it would be as much as he would do to go beyond the fortress rampart. All at once, however, I saw that he was beginning again to have fits of abstraction, walking about his room with his hands clasped behind his back. One day after that, without telling anyone, he set off shooting. During the whole morning he was not to be seen; then the same thing happened another time, and so on--oftener and oftener... "'This looks bad!' I said to myself. 'Something must have come between them!' "One morning I paid them a visit--I can see it all in my mind's eye, as if it was happening now. Bela was sitting on the bed, wearing a black silk jacket, and looking rather pale and so sad that I was alarmed. "'Where is Pechorin?' I asked. "'Hunting.' "'When did he go--to-day?' "'She was silent, as if she found a difficulty in answering. "'No, he has been gone since yesterday,' she said at length, with a heavy sigh. "'Surely nothing has happened to him!' "'Yesterday I thought and thought the whole day,' she answered through her tears; 'I imagined all sorts of misfortunes. At one time I fancied that he had been wounded by a wild boar, at another time, that he had been carried off by a Chechene into the mountains... But, now, I have come to think that he no longer loves me.' "'In truth, my dear girl, you could not have imagined anything worse!' "She burst out crying; then, proudly raising her head, she wiped away the tears and continued: "'If he does not love me, then who prevents him sending me home? I am not putting any constraint on him. But, if things go on like this, I will go away myself--I am not a slave, I am a prince's daughter!'... "I tried to talk her over. "'Listen, Bela. You see it is impossible for him to stop in here with you for ever, as if he was sewn on to your petticoat. He is a young man and fond of hunting. Off he'll go, but you will find that he will come back; and, if you are going to be unhappy, you will soon make him tired of you.' "'True, true!' she said. 'I will be merry.' "And with a burst of laughter, she seized her tambourine, began to sing, dance, and gambol around me. But that did not last long either; she fell upon the bed again and buried her face in her hands. "What could I do with her? You know I have never been accustomed to the society of women. I thought and thought how to cheer her up, but couldn't hit on anything. For some time both of us remained silent... A most unpleasant situation, sir! "At length I said to her: "'Would you like us to go and take a walk on the rampart? The weather is splendid.' "This was in September, and indeed it was a wonderful day, bright and not too hot. The mountains could be seen as clearly as though they were but a hand's-breadth away. We went, and walked in silence to and fro along the rampart of the fortress. At length she sat down on the sward, and I sat beside her. In truth, now, it is funny to think of it all! I used to run after her just like a kind of children's nurse! "Our fortress was situated in a lofty position, and the view from the rampart was superb. On one side, the wide clearing, seamed by a few clefts, was bounded by the forest which stretched out to the very ridge of the mountains. Here and there, on the clearing, villages were to be seen sending forth their smoke, and there were droves of horses roaming about. On the other side flowed a tiny stream, and close to its banks came the dense undergrowth which covered the flinty heights joining the principal chain of the Caucasus. We sat in a corner of the bastion, so that we could see everything on both sides. Suddenly I perceived someone on a grey horse riding out of the forest; nearer and nearer he approached until finally he stopped on the far side of the river, about a hundred fathoms from us, and began to wheel his horse round and round like one possessed. 'Strange!' I thought. "'Look, look, Bela,' I said, 'you've got young eyes--what sort of a horseman is that? Who is it he has come to amuse?'... "'It is Kazbich!' she exclaimed after a glance. "'Ah, the robber! Come to laugh at us, has he?' "I looked closely, and sure enough it was Kazbich, with his swarthy face, and as ragged and dirty as ever. "'It is my father's horse!' said Bela, seizing my arm. "She was trembling like a leaf and her eyes were sparkling. "'Aha!' I said to myself. 'There is robber's blood in your veins still, my dear!' "'Come here,' I said to the sentry. 'Look to your gun and unhorse that gallant for me--and you shall have a silver ruble.' "'Very well, your honour, only he won't keep still.' "'Tell him to!' I said, with a laugh. "'Hey, friend!' cried the sentry, waving his hand. 'Wait a bit. What are you spinning round like a humming-top for?' "Kazbich halted and gave ear to the sentry--probably thinking that we were going to parley with him. Quite the contrary!... My grenadier took aim... Bang!... Missed!... Just as the powder flashed in the pan Kazbich jogged his horse, which gave a bound to one side. He stood up in his stirrups, shouted something in his own language, made a threatening gesture with his whip--and was off. "'Aren't you ashamed of yourself?' I said to the sentry. "'He has gone away to die, your honour,' he answered. 'There's no killing a man of that cursed race at one stroke.' "A quarter of an hour later Pechorin returned from hunting. Bela threw herself on his neck without a single complaint, without a single reproach for his lengthy absence!... Even I was angry with him by this time! "'Good heavens!' I said; 'why, I tell you, Kazbich was here on the other side of the river just a moment ago, and we shot at him. How easily you might have run up against him, you know! These mountaineers are a vindictive race! Do you suppose he does not guess that you gave Azamat some help? And I wager that he recognised Bela to-day! I know he was desperately fond of her a year ago--he told me so himself--and, if he had had any hope of getting together a proper bridegroom's gift, he would certainly have sought her in marriage.' "At this Pechorin became thoughtful. "'Yes,' he answered. 'We must be more cautious--Bela, from this day forth you mustn't walk on the rampart any more.' "In the evening I had a lengthy explanation with him. I was vexed that his feelings towards the poor girl had changed; to say nothing of his spending half the day hunting, his manner towards her had become cold. He rarely caressed her, and she was beginning perceptibly to pine away; her little face was becoming drawn, her large eyes growing dim. "'What are you sighing for, Bela?' I would ask her. 'Are you sad?' "'No!' "'Do you want anything?' "'No!' "'You are pining for your kinsfolk?' "'I have none!' "Sometimes for whole days not a word could be drawn from her but 'Yes' and 'No.' "So I straightway proceeded to talk to Pechorin about her." CHAPTER IX "'LISTEN, Maksim Maksimych,' said Pechorin. 'Mine is an unfortunate disposition; whether it is the result of my upbringing or whether it is innate--I know not. I only know this, that if I am the cause of unhappiness in others I myself am no less unhappy. Of course, that is a poor consolation to them--only the fact remains that such is the case. In my early youth, from the moment I ceased to be under the guardianship of my relations, I began madly to enjoy all the pleasures which money could buy--and, of course, such pleasures became irksome to me. Then I launched out into the world of fashion--and that, too, soon palled upon me. I fell in love with fashionable beauties and was loved by them, but my imagination and egoism alone were aroused; my heart remained empty... I began to read, to study--but sciences also became utterly wearisome to me. I saw that neither fame nor happiness depends on them in the least, because the happiest people are the uneducated, and fame is good fortune, to attain which you have only to be smart. Then I grew bored... Soon afterwards I was transferred to the Caucasus; and that was the happiest time of my life. I hoped that under the bullets of the Chechenes boredom could not exist--a vain hope! In a month I grew so accustomed to the buzzing of the bullets and to the proximity of death that, to tell the truth, I paid more attention to the gnats--and I became more bored than ever, because I had lost what was almost my last hope. When I saw Bela in my own house; when, for the first time, I held her on my knee and kissed her black locks, I, fool that I was, thought that she was an angel sent to me by sympathetic fate... Again I was mistaken; the love of a savage is little better than that of your lady of quality, the barbaric ignorance and simplicity of the one weary you as much as the coquetry of the other. I am not saying that I do not love her still; I am grateful to her for a few fairly sweet moments; I would give my life for her--only I am bored with her... Whether I am a fool or a villain I know not; but this is certain, I am also most deserving of pity--perhaps more than she. My soul has been spoiled by the world, my imagination is unquiet, my heart insatiate. To me everything is of little moment. I become as easily accustomed to grief as to joy, and my life grows emptier day by day. One expedient only is left to me--travel. "'As soon as I can, I shall set off--but not to Europe. Heaven forfend! I shall go to America, to Arabia, to India--perchance I shall die somewhere on the way. At any rate, I am convinced that, thanks to storms and bad roads, that last consolation will not quickly be exhausted!' "For a long time he went on speaking thus, and his words have remained stamped upon my memory, because it was the first time that I had heard such things from a man of five-and-twenty--and Heaven grant it may be the last. Isn't it astonishing? Tell me, please," continued the staff-captain, appealing to me. "You used to live in the Capital, I think, and that not so very long ago. Is it possible that the young men there are all like that?" I replied that there were a good many people who used the same sort of language, that, probably, there might even be some who spoke in all sincerity; that disillusionment, moreover, like all other vogues, having had its beginning in the higher strata of society, had descended to the lower, where it was being worn threadbare, and that, now, those who were really and truly bored strove to conceal their misfortune as if it were a vice. The staff-captain did not understand these subtleties, shook his head, and smiled slyly. "Anyhow, I suppose it was the French who introduced the fashion?" "No, the English." "Aha, there you are!" he answered. "They always have been arrant drunkards, you know!" Involuntarily I recalled to mind a certain lady, living in Moscow, who used to maintain that Byron was nothing more nor less than a drunkard. However, the staff-captain's observation was more excusable; in order to abstain from strong drink, he naturally endeavoured to convince himself that all the misfortunes in the world are the result of drunkenness. CHAPTER X MEANWHILE the staff-captain continued his story. "Kazbich never put in an appearance again; but somehow--I don't know why--I could not get the idea out of my head that he had had a reason for coming, and that some mischievous scheme was in his mind. "Well, one day Pechorin tried to persuade me to go boar-hunting with him. For a long time I refused. What novelty was a wild boar to me? "However, off he dragged me, all the same. We took four or five soldiers and set out early in the morning. Up till ten o'clock we scurried about the reeds and the forest--there wasn't a wild beast to be found! "'I say, oughtn't we to be going back?' I said. 'What's the use of sticking at it? It is evident enough that we have happened on an unlucky day!' "But, in spite of heat and fatigue, Pechorin didn't like to return empty-handed... That is just the kind of man he was; whatever he set his heart on he had to have--evidently, in his childhood, he had been spoiled by an indulgent mother. At last, at midday, we discovered one of those cursed wild boars--Bang! Bang!--No good!--Off it went into the reeds. That was an unlucky day, to be sure!... So, after a short rest, we set off homeward... "We rode in silence, side by side, giving the horses their head. We had almost reached the fortress, and only the brushwood concealed it from view. Suddenly a shot rang out... We glanced at each other, both struck with the selfsame suspicion... We galloped headlong in the direction of the shot, looked, and saw the soldiers clustered together on the rampart and pointing towards a field, along which a rider was flying at full speed, holding something white across his saddle. Grigori Aleksandrovich yelled like any Chechene, whipped his gun from its cover, and gave chase--I after him. "Luckily, thanks to our unsuccessful hunt, our horses were not jaded; they strained under the saddle, and with every moment we drew nearer and nearer... At length I recognised Kazbich, only I could not make out what it was that he was holding in front of him. "Then I drew level with Pechorin and shouted to him: "'It is Kazbich!' "He looked at me, nodded, and struck his horse with his whip. "At last we were within gunshot of Kazbich. Whether it was that his horse was jaded or not so good as ours, I don't know, but, in spite of all his efforts, it did not get along very fast. I fancy at that moment he remembered his Karagyoz! "I looked at Pechorin. He was taking aim as he galloped... "'Don't shoot,' I cried. 'Save the shot! We will catch up with him as it is.' "Oh, these young men! Always taking fire at the wrong moment! The shot rang out and the bullet broke one of the horse's hind legs. It gave a few fiery leaps forward, stumbled, and fell to its knees. Kazbich sprang off, and then we perceived that it was a woman he was holding in his arms--a woman wrapped in a veil. It was Bela--poor Bela! He shouted something to us in his own language and raised his dagger over her... Delay was useless; I fired in my turn, at haphazard. Probably the bullet struck him in the shoulder, because he dropped his hand suddenly. When the smoke cleared off, we could see the wounded horse lying on the ground and Bela beside it; but Kazbich, his gun flung away, was clambering like a cat up the cliff, through the brushwood. I should have liked to have brought him down from there--but I hadn't a charge ready. We jumped off our horses and rushed to Bela. Poor girl! She was lying motionless, and the blood was pouring in streams from her wound. The villain! If he had struck her to the heart--well and good, everything would at least have been finished there and then; but to stab her in the back like that--the scoundrel! She was unconscious. We tore the veil into strips and bound up the wound as tightly as we could. In vain Pechorin kissed her cold lips--it was impossible to bring her to. "Pechorin mounted; I lifted Bela from the ground and somehow managed to place her before him on his saddle; he put his arm round her and we rode back. "'Look here, Maksim Maksimych,' said Grigori Aleksandrovich, after a few moments of silence. 'We will never bring her in alive like this.' "'True!' I said, and we put our horses to a full gallop." CHAPTER XI "A CROWD was awaiting us at the fortress gate. Carefully we carried the wounded girl to Pechorin's quarters, and then we sent for the doctor. The latter was drunk, but he came, examined the wound, and announced that she could not live more than a day. He was mistaken, though." "She recovered?" I asked the staff-captain, seizing him by the arm, and involuntarily rejoicing. "No," he replied, "but the doctor was so far mistaken that she lived two days longer." "Explain, though, how Kazbich made off with her!" "It was like this: in spite of Pechorin's prohibition, she went out of the fortress and down to the river. It was a very hot day, you know, and she sat on a rock and dipped her feet in the water. Up crept Kazbich, pounced upon her, silenced her, and dragged her into the bushes. Then he sprang on his horse and made off. In the meantime she succeeded in crying out, the sentries took the alarm, fired, but wide of the mark; and thereupon we arrived on the scene." "But what did Kazbich want to carry her off for?" "Good gracious! Why, everyone knows these Circassians are a race of thieves; they can't keep their hands off anything that is left lying about! They may not want a thing, but they will steal it, for all that. Still, you mustn't be too hard on them. And, besides, he had been in love with her for a long time." "And Bela died?" "Yes, she died, but she suffered for a long time, and we were fairly knocked up with her, I can tell you. About ten o'clock in the evening she came to herself. We were sitting by her bed. As soon as ever she opened her eyes she began to call Pechorin. "'I am here beside you, my janechka' (that is, 'my darling'), he answered, taking her by the hand. "'I shall die,' she said. "We began to comfort her, telling her that the doctor had promised infallibly to cure her. She shook her little head and turned to the wall--she did not want to die!... "At night she became delirious, her head burned, at times a feverish paroxysm convulsed her whole body. She talked incoherently about her father, her brother; she yearned for the mountains, for her home... Then she spoke of Pechorin also, called him various fond names, or reproached him for having ceased to love his janechka. "He listened to her in silence, his head sunk in his hands; but yet, during the whole time, I did not notice a single tear-drop on his lashes. I do not know whether he was actually unable to weep or was mastering himself; but for my part I have never seen anything more pitiful. "Towards morning the delirium passed off. For an hour or so she lay motionless, pale, and so weak that it was hardly possible to observe that she was breathing. After that she grew better and began to talk: only about what, think you? Such thoughts come only to the dying!... She lamented that she was not a Christian, that in the other world her soul would never meet the soul of Grigori Aleksandrovich, and that in Paradise another woman would be his companion. The thought occurred to me to baptize her before her death. I told her my idea; she looked at me undecidedly, and for a long time was unable to utter a word. Finally she answered that she would die in the faith in which she had been born. A whole day passed thus. What a change that day made in her! Her pale cheeks fell in, her eyes grew ever so large, her lips burned. She felt a consuming heat within her, as though a red-hot blade was piercing her breast. "The second night came on. We did not close our eyes or leave the bedside. She suffered terribly, and groaned; and directly the pain began to abate she endeavoured to assure Grigori Aleksandrovich that she felt better, tried to persuade him to go to bed, kissed his hand and would not let it out of hers. Before the morning she began to feel the death agony and to toss about. She knocked the bandage off, and the blood flowed afresh. When the wound was bound up again she grew quiet for a moment and begged Pechorin to kiss her. He fell on his knees beside the bed, raised her head from the pillow, and pressed his lips to hers--which were growing cold. She threw her trembling arms closely round his neck, as if with that kiss she wished to yield up her soul to him.--No, she did well to die! Why, what would have become of her if Grigori Aleksandrovich had abandoned her? And that is what would have happened, sooner or later. "During half the following day she was calm, silent and docile, however much the doctor tortured her with his fomentations and mixtures. "'Good heavens!' I said to him, 'you know you said yourself that she was certain to die, so what is the good of all these preparations of yours?' "'Even so, it is better to do all this,' he replied, 'so that I may have an easy conscience.' "A pretty conscience, forsooth! "After midday Bela began to suffer from thirst. We opened the windows, but it was hotter outside than in the room; we placed ice round the bed--all to no purpose. I knew that that intolerable thirst was a sign of the approaching end, and I told Pechorin so. "'Water, water!' she said in a hoarse voice, raising herself up from the bed. "Pechorin turned pale as a sheet, seized a glass, filled it, and gave it to her. I covered my eyes with my hands and began to say a prayer--I can't remember what... Yes, my friend, many a time have I seen people die in hospitals or on the field of battle, but this was something altogether different! Still, this one thing grieves me, I must confess: she died without even once calling me to mind. Yet I loved her, I should think, like a father!... Well, God forgive her!... And, to tell the truth, what am I that she should have remembered me when she was dying?... "As soon as she had drunk the water, she grew easier--but in about three minutes she breathed her last! We put a looking-glass to her lips--it was undimmed! "I led Pechorin from the room, and we went on to the fortress rampart. For a long time we walked side by side, to and fro, speaking not a word and with our hands clasped behind our backs. His face expressed nothing out of the common--and that vexed me. Had I been in his place, I should have died of grief. At length he sat down on the ground in the shade and began to draw something in the sand with his stick. More for form's sake than anything, you know, I tried to console him and began to talk. He raised his head and burst into a laugh! At that laugh a cold shudder ran through me... I went away to order a coffin. "I confess it was partly to distract my thoughts that I busied myself in that way. I possessed a little piece of Circassian stuff, and I | sorts | How many times the word 'sorts' appears in the text? | 1 |
very great,--so great that in its first flush she could not restrain herself from exhibiting it to Dorothy. "Well,--well,--what do you think, Dolly?" "About what, aunt? I don't know who the letter is from." "Nobody writes to me now so constant as your sister Priscilla. The letter is from Priscilla. Colonel Osborne has been at the Clock House, after all. I knew that he would be there. I knew it! I knew it!" Dorothy, when she heard this, was dumbfounded. She had rested her defence of her mother and sister on the impossibility of any such visit being admitted. According to her lights the coming of Colonel Osborne, after all that had been said, would be like the coming of Lucifer himself. The Colonel was, to her imagination, a horrible roaring lion. She had no idea that the erratic manoeuvres of such a beast might be milder and more innocent than the wooing of any turtle-dove. She would have asked whether the roaring lion had gone away again, and, if so, whether he had taken his prey with him, were it not that she was too much frightened at the moment to ask any question. That her mother and sister should have been wilfully concerned in such iniquity was quite incredible to her, but yet she did not know how to defend them. "But are you quite sure of it, Aunt Stanbury? May there not be another mistake?" "No mistake this time, I think, my dear. Any way, Priscilla says that he is there." Now in this there was a mistake. Priscilla had said nothing of the kind. "You don't mean that he is staying at the Clock House, Aunt Stanbury?" "I don't know where he is now. I'm not his keeper. And, I'm glad to say, I'm not the lady's keeper either. Ah, me! It's a bad business. You can't touch pitch and not be defiled, my dear. If your mother wanted the Clock House, I would sooner have taken it for her myself than that all this should have happened,--for the family's sake." But Miss Stanbury, when she was alone, and when she had read her niece's three letters again and again, began to understand something of Priscilla's honesty, and began also to perceive that there might have been a great difficulty respecting the Colonel, for which neither her niece nor her sister-in-law could fairly be held to be responsible. It was perhaps the plainest characteristic of all the Stanburys that they were never wilfully dishonest. Ignorant, prejudiced, and passionate they might be. In her anger Miss Stanbury, of Exeter, could be almost malicious; and her niece at Nuncombe Putney was very like her aunt. Each could say most cruel things, most unjust things, when actuated by a mistaken consciousness of perfect right on her own side. But neither of them could lie,--even by silence. Let an error be brought home to either of them,--so as to be acknowledged at home,--and the error would be assuredly confessed aloud. And, indeed, with differences in the shades, Hugh and Dorothy were of the same nature. They were possessed of sweeter tempers than their aunt and sister, but they were filled with the same eager readiness to believe themselves to be right,--and to own themselves to others to be wrong, when they had been constrained to make such confession to themselves. The chances of life, and something probably of inner nature, had made Dorothy mild and obedient; whereas, in regard to Hugh, the circumstances of his life and disposition had made him obstinate and self-reliant. But in all was to be found the same belief in self,--which amounted almost to conceit,--the same warmth of affection, and the same love of justice. When Miss Stanbury had again perused the correspondence, and had come to see, dimly, how things had gone at Nuncombe Putney,--when the conviction came upon her mind that Priscilla had entertained a horror as to the coming of this Colonel equal to that which she herself had felt,--when her imagination painted to her all that her niece had suffered, her heart was softened somewhat. She had declared to Dorothy that pitch, if touched, would certainly defile; and she had, at first, intended to send the same opinion, couched in very forcible words, to her correspondents at the Clock House. They should not continue to go astray for want of being told that they were going astray. It must be acknowledged, too, that there was a certain amount of ignoble wrath in the bosom of Miss Stanbury because her sister-in-law had taken the Clock House. She had never been told, and had not even condescended to ask Dorothy, whether the house was taken and paid for by her nephew on behalf of his mother, or whether it was paid for by Mr. Trevelyan on behalf of his wife. In the latter case, Mrs. Stanbury would, she thought, be little more than an upper servant, or keeper,--as she expressed it to herself. Such an arrangement appeared to her to be quite disgraceful in a Stanbury; but yet she believed that such must be the existing arrangement, as she could not bring herself to conceive that Hugh Stanbury could keep such an establishment over his mother's head out of money earned by writing for a penny newspaper. There would be a triumph of democracy in this which would vanquish her altogether. She had, therefore, been anxious enough to trample on Priscilla and upon all the affairs of the Clock House; but yet she had been unable to ignore the nobility of Priscilla's truth, and having acknowledged it to herself she found herself compelled to acknowledge it aloud. She sat down to think in silence, and it was not till she had fortified herself by her first draught of beer, and till she had finished her first portion of bread and cheese, that she spoke. "I have written to your sister herself, this time," she said. "I don't know that I ever wrote a line to her before in my life." "Poor Priscilla!" Dorothy did not mean to be severe on her aunt, either in regard to the letters which had not been written, or to the one letter which now had been written. But Dorothy pitied her sister, whom she felt to be in trouble. "Well; I don't know about her being so poor. Priscilla, I'll be bound, thinks as well of herself as any of us do." "She'd cut her fingers off before she'd mean to do wrong," said Dorothy. "But what does that come to? What's the good of that? It isn't meaning to do right that will save us. For aught I know, the Radicals may mean to do right. Mr. Beales means to do right--perhaps." "But, aunt,--if everybody did the best they could?" "Tush, my dear! you are getting beyond your depth. There are such things still, thank God! as spiritual pastors and masters. Entrust yourself to them. Do what they think right." Now if aught were known in Exeter of Miss Stanbury, this was known,--that if any clergyman volunteered to give to her, unasked and uninvited, counsel, either ghostly or bodily, that clergyman would be sent from her presence with a wigging which he would not soon forget. The thing had been tried more than once, and the wigging had been complete. There was no more attentive listener in church than Miss Stanbury; and she would, now and again, appeal to a clergyman on some knotty point. But for the ordinary authority of spiritual pastors and masters she shewed more of abstract reverence than of practical obedience. "I'm sure Priscilla does the best she can," said Dorothy, going back to the old subject. "Ah,--well,--yes. What I want to say about Priscilla is this. It is a thousand pities she is so obstinate, so pig-headed, so certain that she can manage everything for herself better than anybody else can for her." Miss Stanbury was striving to say something good of her niece, but found the task to be difficult and distasteful to her. "She has managed for mamma ever so many years; and since she took it we have hardly ever been in debt," said Dorothy. "She'll do all that, I don't doubt. I don't suppose she cares much for ribbons and false hair for herself." "Who? Priscilla! The idea of Priscilla with false hair!" "I dare say not;--I dare say not. I do not think she'd spend her mother's money on things of that kind." "Aunt Stanbury, you don't know her." "Ah; very well. Perhaps I don't. But, come, my dear, you are very hard upon me, and very anxious to take your sister's part. And what is it all about? I've just written to her as civil a letter as one woman ever wrote to another. And if I had chosen, I could have,--could have,--h--m--m." Miss Stanbury, as she hesitated for words in which to complete her sentence, revelled in the strength of the vituperation which she could have poured upon her niece's head, had she chosen to write her last letter about Colonel Osborne in her severe strain. "If you have written kindly to her, I am so much obliged to you," said Dorothy. "The truth is, Priscilla has meant to be right. Meaning won't go for much when the account is taken, unless the meaning comes from a proper source. But the poor girl has done as well as she has known how. I believe it is Hugh's fault more than anybody else's." This accusation was not pleasant to Dorothy, but she was too intent just now on Priscilla's case to defend her brother. "That man never ought to have been there; and that woman never ought to have been there. There cannot be a doubt about that. If Priscilla were sitting there opposite to me, she would own as much. I am sure she would." Miss Stanbury was quite right if she meant to assert that Priscilla had owned as much to herself. "And because I think so, I am willing to forgive her part in the matter. To me, personally, she has always been rude,--most uncourteous,--and,--and,--and unlike a younger woman to an older one, and an aunt, and all that. I suppose it is because she hates me." "Oh, no, Aunt Stanbury!" "My dear, I suppose it is. Why else should she treat me in such a way? But I do believe of her that she would rather eat an honest, dry crust, than dishonest cake and ale." "She would rather starve than pick up a crumb that was dishonest," said Dorothy, fairly bursting out into tears. "I believe it. I do believe it. There; what more can I say? Clock House, indeed! What matter what house you live in, so that you can pay the rent of it honestly?" "But the rent is paid--honestly," said Dorothy, amidst her sobs. "It's paid, I don't doubt. I dare say the woman's husband and your brother see to that among them. Oh, that my boy, Hugh, as he used to be, should have brought us all to this! But there's no knowing what they won't do among them. Reform, indeed! Murder, sacrilege, adultery, treason, atheism;--that's what Reform means; besides every kind of nastiness under the sun." In which latter category Miss Stanbury intended especially to include bad printer's ink, and paper made of straw. The reader may as well see the letter which was as civil a letter as ever one woman wrote to another, so that the collection of the Stanbury correspondence may be made perfect. The Close, August 6, 186--. MY DEAR NIECE, Your letter has not astonished me nearly as much as you expected it would. I am an older woman than you, and, though you will not believe it, I have seen more of the world. I knew that the gentleman would come after the lady. Such gentlemen always do go after their ladies. As for yourself, I can see all that you have done, and pretty nearly hear all that you have said, as plain as a pike-staff. I do you the credit of believing that the plan is none of your making. I know who made the plan, and a very bad plan it is. As to my former letters and the other man, I understand all about it. You were very angry that I should accuse you of having this man at the house; and you were right to be angry. I respect you for having been angry. But what does all that say as to his coming,--now that he has come? If you will consent to take an old woman's advice, get rid of the whole boiling of them. I say it in firm love and friendship, for I am,-- Your affectionate aunt, JEMIMA STANBURY. The special vaunted courtesy of this letter consisted, no doubt, in the expression of respect which it contained, and in that declaration of affection with which it terminated. The epithet was one which Miss Stanbury would by no means use promiscuously in writing to her nearest relatives. She had not intended to use it when she commenced her letter to Priscilla. But the respect of which she had spoken had glowed, and had warmed itself into something of temporary love; and feeling at the moment that she was an affectionate aunt, Miss Stanbury had so put herself down in her letter. Having done such a deed she felt that Dorothy, though Dorothy knew nothing about it, ought in her gratitude to listen patiently to anything that she might now choose to say against Priscilla. But Dorothy was in truth very miserable, and in her misery wrote a long letter that afternoon to her mother,--which, however, it will not be necessary to place entire among the Stanbury records,--begging that she might be informed as to the true circumstances of the case. She did not say a word of censure in regard either to her mother or sister; but she expressed an opinion in the mildest words which she could use, that if anything had happened which had compromised their names since their residence at the Clock House, she, Dorothy, had better go home and join them. The meaning of which was that it would not become her to remain in the house in the Close, if the house in the Close would be disgraced by her presence. Poor Dorothy had taught herself to think that the iniquity of roaring lions spread itself very widely. In the afternoon she made some such proposition to her aunt in ambiguous terms. "Go home!" said Miss Stanbury. "Now?" "If you think it best, Aunt Stanbury." "And put yourself in the middle of all this iniquity and abomination! I don't suppose you want to know the woman?" "No, indeed!" "Or the man?" "Oh, Aunt Stanbury!" "It's my belief that no decent gentleman in Exeter would look at you again if you were to go and live among them at Nuncombe Putney while all this is going on. No, no. Let one of you be saved out of it, at least." Aunt Stanbury had more than once made use of expressions which brought the faintest touch of gentle pink up to her niece's cheeks. We must do Dorothy the justice of saying that she had never dreamed of being looked at by any gentleman, whether decent or indecent. Her life at Nuncombe Putney had been of such a nature, that though she knew that other girls were looked at, and even made love to, and that they got married and had children, no dim vision of such a career for herself had ever presented itself to her eyes. She had known very well that her mother and sister and herself were people apart,--ladies, and yet so extremely poor, that they could only maintain their rank by the most rigid seclusion. To live, and work unseen, was what the world had ordained for her. Then her call to Exeter had come upon her, and she had conceived that she was henceforth to be the humble companion of a very imperious old aunt. Her aunt, indeed, was imperious, but did not seem to require humility in her companion. All the good things that were eaten and drunk were divided between them with the strictest impartiality. Dorothy's cushion and hassock in the church and in the cathedral were the same as her aunt's. Her bed-room was made very comfortable for her. Her aunt never gave her any orders before company, and always spoke of her before the servants as one whom they were to obey and respect. Gradually Dorothy came to understand the meaning of this;--but her aunt would sometimes say things about young men which she did not quite understand. Could it be that her aunt supposed that any young man would come and wish to marry her,--her, Dorothy Stanbury? She herself had not quite so strong an aversion to men in general as that which Priscilla felt, but she had not as yet found that any of those whom she had seen at Exeter were peculiarly agreeable to her. Before she went to bed that night her aunt said a word to her which startled her more than she had ever been startled before. On that evening Miss Stanbury had a few friends to drink tea with her. There were Mr. and Mrs. Crumbie, and Mrs. MacHugh of course, and the Cheritons from Alphington, and the Miss Apjohns from Helion Villa, and old Mr. Powel all the way from Haldon, and two of the Wrights from their house in the Northernhay, and Mr. Gibson;--but the Miss Frenches from Heavitree were not there. "Why don't you have the Miss Frenches, aunt?" Dorothy had asked. "Bother the Miss Frenches! I'm not bound to have them every time. There's Camilla has been and got herself a band-box on the back of her head a great deal bigger than the place inside where her brains ought to be." But the band-box at the back of Camilla French's head was not the sole cause of the omission of the two sisters from the list of Miss Stanbury's visitors on this occasion. The party went off very much as usual. There were two whist tables, for Miss Stanbury could not bear to cut out. At other houses than her own, when there was cutting out, it was quite understood that Miss Stanbury was to be allowed to keep her place. "I'll go away, and sit out there by myself, if you like," she would say. But she was never thus banished; and at her own house she usually contrived that there should be no system of banishment. She would play dummy whist, preferring it to the four-handed game; and, when hard driven, and with a meet opponent, would not even despise double-dummy. It was told of her and of Mrs. MacHugh that they had played double-dummy for a whole evening together; and they who were given to calumny had declared that the candles on that evening had been lighted very early. On the present occasion a great many sixpenny points were scored, and much tea and cake were consumed. Mr. Gibson never played whist,--nor did Dorothy. That young John Wright and Mary Cheriton should do nothing but talk to each other was a thing of course, as they were to be married in a month or two. Then there was Ida Cheriton, who could not very well be left at home; and Mr. Gibson made himself pleasant to Dorothy and Ida Cheriton, instead of making himself pleasant to the two Miss Frenches. Gentlemen in provincial towns quite understand that, from the nature of social circumstances in the provinces, they should always be ready to be pleasant at least to a pair at a time. At a few minutes before twelve they were all gone, and then came the shock. "Dolly, my dear, what do you think of Mr. Gibson?" "Think of him, Aunt Stanbury?" "Yes; think of him;--think of him. I suppose you know how to think?" "He seems to me always to preach very drawling sermons." "Oh, bother his sermons! I don't care anything about his sermons now. He is a very good clergyman, and the Dean thinks very much about him." "I am glad of that, Aunt Stanbury." Then came the shock. "Don't you think it would be a very good thing if you were to become Mrs. Gibson?" It may be presumed that Miss Stanbury had assured herself that she could not make progress with Dorothy by "beating about the bush." There was an inaptitude in her niece to comprehend the advantages of the situations, which made some direct explanation absolutely necessary. Dorothy stood half-smiling, half-crying, when she heard the proposition, her cheeks suffused with that pink colour, and with both her hands extended with surprise. "I've been thinking about it ever since you've been here," said Miss Stanbury. "I think he likes Miss French," said Dorothy, in a whisper. "Which of them? I don't believe he likes them at all. Maybe, if they go on long enough, they may be able to toss up for him. But I don't think it of him. Of course they're after him, but he'll be too wise for them. And he's more of a fool than I take him to be if he don't prefer you to them." Dorothy remained quite silent. To such an address as this it was impossible that she should reply a word. It was incredible to her that any man should prefer herself to either of the young women in question; but she was too much confounded for the expression even of her humility. "At any rate you're wholesome, and pleasant and modest," said Miss Stanbury. Dorothy did not quite like being told that she was wholesome; but, nevertheless, she was thankful to her aunt. "I'll tell you what it is," continued Miss Stanbury; "I hate all mysteries, especially with those I love. I've saved two thousand pounds, which I've put you down for in my will. Now, if you and he can make it up together, I'll give you the money at once. There's no knowing how often an old woman may alter her will; but when you've got a thing, you've got it. Mr. Gibson would know the meaning of a bird in the hand as well as anybody. Now those girls at Heavitree will never have above a few hundreds each, and not that while their mother lives." Dorothy made one little attempt at squeezing her aunt's hand, wishing to thank her aunt for this affectionate generosity; but she had hardly accomplished the squeeze, when she desisted, feeling strangely averse to any acknowledgment of such a boon as that which had been offered to her. "And now, good night, my dear. If I did not think you a very sensible young woman, I should not trust you by saying all this." Then they parted, and Dorothy soon found herself alone in her bedroom. To have a husband of her own, a perfect gentleman too, and a clergyman;--and to go to him with a fortune! She believed that two thousand pounds represented nearly a hundred a year. It was a large fortune in those parts,--according to her understanding of ladies' fortunes. And that she, the humblest of the humble, should be selected for so honourable a position! She had never quite known, quite understood as yet, whether she had made good her footing in her aunt's house in a manner pleasant to her aunt. More than once or twice she had spoken even of going back to her mother, and things had been said which had almost made her think that her aunt had been angry with her. But now, after a month or two of joint residence, her aunt was offering to her--two thousand pounds and a husband! But was it within her aunt's power to offer to her the husband? Mr. Gibson had always been very civil to her. She had spoken more to Mr. Gibson than to any other man in Exeter. But it had never occurred to her for a moment that Mr. Gibson had any special liking for her. Was it probable that he would ever entertain any feeling of that kind for her? It certainly had occurred to her before now that Mr. Gibson was sometimes bored by the Miss Frenches;--but then gentlemen do get bored by ladies. And at last she asked herself another question,--had she any special liking for Mr. Gibson? As far as she understood such matters everything was blank there. Thinking of that other question, she went to sleep. CHAPTER XXIII. COLONEL OSBORNE AND MR. BOZZLE RETURN TO LONDON. Hugh Stanbury went down on the Saturday, by the early express to Exeter, on his road to Lessboro'. He took his ticket through to Lessboro', not purposing to stay at Exeter; but, from the exigencies of the various trains, it was necessary that he should remain for half an hour at the Exeter Station. This took place on the Saturday, and Colonel Osborne's visit to the Clock House had been made on the Friday. Colonel Osborne had returned to Lessboro', had slept again at Mrs. Clegg's house, and returned to London on the Saturday. It so happened that he also was obliged to spend half an hour at the Exeter Station, and that his half-hour, and Hugh Stanbury's half-hour, were one and the same. They met, therefore, as a matter of course, upon the platform. Stanbury was the first to see the other, and he found that he must determine on the spur of the moment what he would say, and what he would do. He had received no direct commission from Trevelyan as to his meeting with Colonel Osborne. Trevelyan had declared that, as to the matter of quarrelling, he meant to retain the privilege of doing that for himself; but Stanbury had quite understood that this was only the vague expression of an angry man. The Colonel had taken a glass of sherry, and had lighted a cigar, and was quite comfortable,--having thrown aside, for a time, that consciousness of the futility of his journey which had perplexed him,--when Stanbury accosted him. "What! Mr. Stanbury,--how do you do? Fine day, isn't it? Are you going up or down?" "I'm going to see my own people at Nuncombe Putney, a village beyond Lessboro'," said Hugh. "Ah;--indeed." Colonel Osborne of course perceived at once that as this man was going to the house at which he had just been visiting, it would be better that he should himself explain what he had done. If he were to allow this mention of Nuncombe Putney to pass without saying that he himself had been there, he would be convicted of at least some purpose of secrecy in what he had been doing. "Very strange," said he; "I was at Nuncombe Putney myself yesterday." "I know you were," said Stanbury. "And how did you know it?" There had been a tone of anger in Stanbury's voice which Colonel Osborne had at once appreciated, and which made him assume a similar tone. As they spoke there was a man standing in a corner close by the bookstall, with his eye upon them, and that man was Bozzle, the ex-policeman,--who was doing his duty with sedulous activity by seeing "the Colonel" back to London. Now Bozzle did not know Hugh Stanbury, and was angry with himself that he should be so ignorant. It is the pride of a detective ex-policeman to know everybody that comes in his way. "Well, I had been so informed. My friend Trevelyan knew that you were there,--or that you were going there." "I don't care who knew that I was going there," said the Colonel. "I won't pretend to understand how that may be, Colonel Osborne; but I think you must be aware, after what took place in Curzon Street, that it would have been better that you should not have attempted to see Mrs. Trevelyan. Whether you have seen her I do not know." "What business is it of yours, Mr. Stanbury, whether I have seen that lady or not?" "Unhappily for me, her husband has made it my business." "Very unhappily for you, I should say." "And the lady is staying at my mother's house." "I presume the lady is not a prisoner in your mother's house, and that your mother's hospitality is not so restricted but that her guest may see an old friend under her roof." This Colonel Osborne said with an assumed look of almost righteous indignation, which was not at all lost upon Bozzle. They had returned back towards the bookstall, and Bozzle, with his eyes fixed on a copy of the "D. R." which he had just bought, was straining his ears to the utmost to catch what was being said. "You best know whether you have seen her or not." "I have seen her." "Then I shall take leave to tell you, Colonel Osborne, that you have acted in a most unfriendly way, and have done that which must tend to keep an affectionate husband apart from his wife." "Sir, I don't at all understand this kind of thing addressed to me. The father of the lady you are speaking of has been my most intimate friend for thirty years." After all, the Colonel was a mean man when he could take pride in his youth, and defend himself on the score of his age, in one and the same proceeding. "I have nothing further to say," replied Stanbury. "You have said too much already, Mr. Stanbury." "I think not, Colonel Osborne. You have, I fear, done an incredible deal of mischief by going to Nuncombe Putney; and, after all that you have heard on the subject, you must have known that it would be mischievous. I cannot understand how you can | entire | How many times the word 'entire' appears in the text? | 1 |
very great,--so great that in its first flush she could not restrain herself from exhibiting it to Dorothy. "Well,--well,--what do you think, Dolly?" "About what, aunt? I don't know who the letter is from." "Nobody writes to me now so constant as your sister Priscilla. The letter is from Priscilla. Colonel Osborne has been at the Clock House, after all. I knew that he would be there. I knew it! I knew it!" Dorothy, when she heard this, was dumbfounded. She had rested her defence of her mother and sister on the impossibility of any such visit being admitted. According to her lights the coming of Colonel Osborne, after all that had been said, would be like the coming of Lucifer himself. The Colonel was, to her imagination, a horrible roaring lion. She had no idea that the erratic manoeuvres of such a beast might be milder and more innocent than the wooing of any turtle-dove. She would have asked whether the roaring lion had gone away again, and, if so, whether he had taken his prey with him, were it not that she was too much frightened at the moment to ask any question. That her mother and sister should have been wilfully concerned in such iniquity was quite incredible to her, but yet she did not know how to defend them. "But are you quite sure of it, Aunt Stanbury? May there not be another mistake?" "No mistake this time, I think, my dear. Any way, Priscilla says that he is there." Now in this there was a mistake. Priscilla had said nothing of the kind. "You don't mean that he is staying at the Clock House, Aunt Stanbury?" "I don't know where he is now. I'm not his keeper. And, I'm glad to say, I'm not the lady's keeper either. Ah, me! It's a bad business. You can't touch pitch and not be defiled, my dear. If your mother wanted the Clock House, I would sooner have taken it for her myself than that all this should have happened,--for the family's sake." But Miss Stanbury, when she was alone, and when she had read her niece's three letters again and again, began to understand something of Priscilla's honesty, and began also to perceive that there might have been a great difficulty respecting the Colonel, for which neither her niece nor her sister-in-law could fairly be held to be responsible. It was perhaps the plainest characteristic of all the Stanburys that they were never wilfully dishonest. Ignorant, prejudiced, and passionate they might be. In her anger Miss Stanbury, of Exeter, could be almost malicious; and her niece at Nuncombe Putney was very like her aunt. Each could say most cruel things, most unjust things, when actuated by a mistaken consciousness of perfect right on her own side. But neither of them could lie,--even by silence. Let an error be brought home to either of them,--so as to be acknowledged at home,--and the error would be assuredly confessed aloud. And, indeed, with differences in the shades, Hugh and Dorothy were of the same nature. They were possessed of sweeter tempers than their aunt and sister, but they were filled with the same eager readiness to believe themselves to be right,--and to own themselves to others to be wrong, when they had been constrained to make such confession to themselves. The chances of life, and something probably of inner nature, had made Dorothy mild and obedient; whereas, in regard to Hugh, the circumstances of his life and disposition had made him obstinate and self-reliant. But in all was to be found the same belief in self,--which amounted almost to conceit,--the same warmth of affection, and the same love of justice. When Miss Stanbury had again perused the correspondence, and had come to see, dimly, how things had gone at Nuncombe Putney,--when the conviction came upon her mind that Priscilla had entertained a horror as to the coming of this Colonel equal to that which she herself had felt,--when her imagination painted to her all that her niece had suffered, her heart was softened somewhat. She had declared to Dorothy that pitch, if touched, would certainly defile; and she had, at first, intended to send the same opinion, couched in very forcible words, to her correspondents at the Clock House. They should not continue to go astray for want of being told that they were going astray. It must be acknowledged, too, that there was a certain amount of ignoble wrath in the bosom of Miss Stanbury because her sister-in-law had taken the Clock House. She had never been told, and had not even condescended to ask Dorothy, whether the house was taken and paid for by her nephew on behalf of his mother, or whether it was paid for by Mr. Trevelyan on behalf of his wife. In the latter case, Mrs. Stanbury would, she thought, be little more than an upper servant, or keeper,--as she expressed it to herself. Such an arrangement appeared to her to be quite disgraceful in a Stanbury; but yet she believed that such must be the existing arrangement, as she could not bring herself to conceive that Hugh Stanbury could keep such an establishment over his mother's head out of money earned by writing for a penny newspaper. There would be a triumph of democracy in this which would vanquish her altogether. She had, therefore, been anxious enough to trample on Priscilla and upon all the affairs of the Clock House; but yet she had been unable to ignore the nobility of Priscilla's truth, and having acknowledged it to herself she found herself compelled to acknowledge it aloud. She sat down to think in silence, and it was not till she had fortified herself by her first draught of beer, and till she had finished her first portion of bread and cheese, that she spoke. "I have written to your sister herself, this time," she said. "I don't know that I ever wrote a line to her before in my life." "Poor Priscilla!" Dorothy did not mean to be severe on her aunt, either in regard to the letters which had not been written, or to the one letter which now had been written. But Dorothy pitied her sister, whom she felt to be in trouble. "Well; I don't know about her being so poor. Priscilla, I'll be bound, thinks as well of herself as any of us do." "She'd cut her fingers off before she'd mean to do wrong," said Dorothy. "But what does that come to? What's the good of that? It isn't meaning to do right that will save us. For aught I know, the Radicals may mean to do right. Mr. Beales means to do right--perhaps." "But, aunt,--if everybody did the best they could?" "Tush, my dear! you are getting beyond your depth. There are such things still, thank God! as spiritual pastors and masters. Entrust yourself to them. Do what they think right." Now if aught were known in Exeter of Miss Stanbury, this was known,--that if any clergyman volunteered to give to her, unasked and uninvited, counsel, either ghostly or bodily, that clergyman would be sent from her presence with a wigging which he would not soon forget. The thing had been tried more than once, and the wigging had been complete. There was no more attentive listener in church than Miss Stanbury; and she would, now and again, appeal to a clergyman on some knotty point. But for the ordinary authority of spiritual pastors and masters she shewed more of abstract reverence than of practical obedience. "I'm sure Priscilla does the best she can," said Dorothy, going back to the old subject. "Ah,--well,--yes. What I want to say about Priscilla is this. It is a thousand pities she is so obstinate, so pig-headed, so certain that she can manage everything for herself better than anybody else can for her." Miss Stanbury was striving to say something good of her niece, but found the task to be difficult and distasteful to her. "She has managed for mamma ever so many years; and since she took it we have hardly ever been in debt," said Dorothy. "She'll do all that, I don't doubt. I don't suppose she cares much for ribbons and false hair for herself." "Who? Priscilla! The idea of Priscilla with false hair!" "I dare say not;--I dare say not. I do not think she'd spend her mother's money on things of that kind." "Aunt Stanbury, you don't know her." "Ah; very well. Perhaps I don't. But, come, my dear, you are very hard upon me, and very anxious to take your sister's part. And what is it all about? I've just written to her as civil a letter as one woman ever wrote to another. And if I had chosen, I could have,--could have,--h--m--m." Miss Stanbury, as she hesitated for words in which to complete her sentence, revelled in the strength of the vituperation which she could have poured upon her niece's head, had she chosen to write her last letter about Colonel Osborne in her severe strain. "If you have written kindly to her, I am so much obliged to you," said Dorothy. "The truth is, Priscilla has meant to be right. Meaning won't go for much when the account is taken, unless the meaning comes from a proper source. But the poor girl has done as well as she has known how. I believe it is Hugh's fault more than anybody else's." This accusation was not pleasant to Dorothy, but she was too intent just now on Priscilla's case to defend her brother. "That man never ought to have been there; and that woman never ought to have been there. There cannot be a doubt about that. If Priscilla were sitting there opposite to me, she would own as much. I am sure she would." Miss Stanbury was quite right if she meant to assert that Priscilla had owned as much to herself. "And because I think so, I am willing to forgive her part in the matter. To me, personally, she has always been rude,--most uncourteous,--and,--and,--and unlike a younger woman to an older one, and an aunt, and all that. I suppose it is because she hates me." "Oh, no, Aunt Stanbury!" "My dear, I suppose it is. Why else should she treat me in such a way? But I do believe of her that she would rather eat an honest, dry crust, than dishonest cake and ale." "She would rather starve than pick up a crumb that was dishonest," said Dorothy, fairly bursting out into tears. "I believe it. I do believe it. There; what more can I say? Clock House, indeed! What matter what house you live in, so that you can pay the rent of it honestly?" "But the rent is paid--honestly," said Dorothy, amidst her sobs. "It's paid, I don't doubt. I dare say the woman's husband and your brother see to that among them. Oh, that my boy, Hugh, as he used to be, should have brought us all to this! But there's no knowing what they won't do among them. Reform, indeed! Murder, sacrilege, adultery, treason, atheism;--that's what Reform means; besides every kind of nastiness under the sun." In which latter category Miss Stanbury intended especially to include bad printer's ink, and paper made of straw. The reader may as well see the letter which was as civil a letter as ever one woman wrote to another, so that the collection of the Stanbury correspondence may be made perfect. The Close, August 6, 186--. MY DEAR NIECE, Your letter has not astonished me nearly as much as you expected it would. I am an older woman than you, and, though you will not believe it, I have seen more of the world. I knew that the gentleman would come after the lady. Such gentlemen always do go after their ladies. As for yourself, I can see all that you have done, and pretty nearly hear all that you have said, as plain as a pike-staff. I do you the credit of believing that the plan is none of your making. I know who made the plan, and a very bad plan it is. As to my former letters and the other man, I understand all about it. You were very angry that I should accuse you of having this man at the house; and you were right to be angry. I respect you for having been angry. But what does all that say as to his coming,--now that he has come? If you will consent to take an old woman's advice, get rid of the whole boiling of them. I say it in firm love and friendship, for I am,-- Your affectionate aunt, JEMIMA STANBURY. The special vaunted courtesy of this letter consisted, no doubt, in the expression of respect which it contained, and in that declaration of affection with which it terminated. The epithet was one which Miss Stanbury would by no means use promiscuously in writing to her nearest relatives. She had not intended to use it when she commenced her letter to Priscilla. But the respect of which she had spoken had glowed, and had warmed itself into something of temporary love; and feeling at the moment that she was an affectionate aunt, Miss Stanbury had so put herself down in her letter. Having done such a deed she felt that Dorothy, though Dorothy knew nothing about it, ought in her gratitude to listen patiently to anything that she might now choose to say against Priscilla. But Dorothy was in truth very miserable, and in her misery wrote a long letter that afternoon to her mother,--which, however, it will not be necessary to place entire among the Stanbury records,--begging that she might be informed as to the true circumstances of the case. She did not say a word of censure in regard either to her mother or sister; but she expressed an opinion in the mildest words which she could use, that if anything had happened which had compromised their names since their residence at the Clock House, she, Dorothy, had better go home and join them. The meaning of which was that it would not become her to remain in the house in the Close, if the house in the Close would be disgraced by her presence. Poor Dorothy had taught herself to think that the iniquity of roaring lions spread itself very widely. In the afternoon she made some such proposition to her aunt in ambiguous terms. "Go home!" said Miss Stanbury. "Now?" "If you think it best, Aunt Stanbury." "And put yourself in the middle of all this iniquity and abomination! I don't suppose you want to know the woman?" "No, indeed!" "Or the man?" "Oh, Aunt Stanbury!" "It's my belief that no decent gentleman in Exeter would look at you again if you were to go and live among them at Nuncombe Putney while all this is going on. No, no. Let one of you be saved out of it, at least." Aunt Stanbury had more than once made use of expressions which brought the faintest touch of gentle pink up to her niece's cheeks. We must do Dorothy the justice of saying that she had never dreamed of being looked at by any gentleman, whether decent or indecent. Her life at Nuncombe Putney had been of such a nature, that though she knew that other girls were looked at, and even made love to, and that they got married and had children, no dim vision of such a career for herself had ever presented itself to her eyes. She had known very well that her mother and sister and herself were people apart,--ladies, and yet so extremely poor, that they could only maintain their rank by the most rigid seclusion. To live, and work unseen, was what the world had ordained for her. Then her call to Exeter had come upon her, and she had conceived that she was henceforth to be the humble companion of a very imperious old aunt. Her aunt, indeed, was imperious, but did not seem to require humility in her companion. All the good things that were eaten and drunk were divided between them with the strictest impartiality. Dorothy's cushion and hassock in the church and in the cathedral were the same as her aunt's. Her bed-room was made very comfortable for her. Her aunt never gave her any orders before company, and always spoke of her before the servants as one whom they were to obey and respect. Gradually Dorothy came to understand the meaning of this;--but her aunt would sometimes say things about young men which she did not quite understand. Could it be that her aunt supposed that any young man would come and wish to marry her,--her, Dorothy Stanbury? She herself had not quite so strong an aversion to men in general as that which Priscilla felt, but she had not as yet found that any of those whom she had seen at Exeter were peculiarly agreeable to her. Before she went to bed that night her aunt said a word to her which startled her more than she had ever been startled before. On that evening Miss Stanbury had a few friends to drink tea with her. There were Mr. and Mrs. Crumbie, and Mrs. MacHugh of course, and the Cheritons from Alphington, and the Miss Apjohns from Helion Villa, and old Mr. Powel all the way from Haldon, and two of the Wrights from their house in the Northernhay, and Mr. Gibson;--but the Miss Frenches from Heavitree were not there. "Why don't you have the Miss Frenches, aunt?" Dorothy had asked. "Bother the Miss Frenches! I'm not bound to have them every time. There's Camilla has been and got herself a band-box on the back of her head a great deal bigger than the place inside where her brains ought to be." But the band-box at the back of Camilla French's head was not the sole cause of the omission of the two sisters from the list of Miss Stanbury's visitors on this occasion. The party went off very much as usual. There were two whist tables, for Miss Stanbury could not bear to cut out. At other houses than her own, when there was cutting out, it was quite understood that Miss Stanbury was to be allowed to keep her place. "I'll go away, and sit out there by myself, if you like," she would say. But she was never thus banished; and at her own house she usually contrived that there should be no system of banishment. She would play dummy whist, preferring it to the four-handed game; and, when hard driven, and with a meet opponent, would not even despise double-dummy. It was told of her and of Mrs. MacHugh that they had played double-dummy for a whole evening together; and they who were given to calumny had declared that the candles on that evening had been lighted very early. On the present occasion a great many sixpenny points were scored, and much tea and cake were consumed. Mr. Gibson never played whist,--nor did Dorothy. That young John Wright and Mary Cheriton should do nothing but talk to each other was a thing of course, as they were to be married in a month or two. Then there was Ida Cheriton, who could not very well be left at home; and Mr. Gibson made himself pleasant to Dorothy and Ida Cheriton, instead of making himself pleasant to the two Miss Frenches. Gentlemen in provincial towns quite understand that, from the nature of social circumstances in the provinces, they should always be ready to be pleasant at least to a pair at a time. At a few minutes before twelve they were all gone, and then came the shock. "Dolly, my dear, what do you think of Mr. Gibson?" "Think of him, Aunt Stanbury?" "Yes; think of him;--think of him. I suppose you know how to think?" "He seems to me always to preach very drawling sermons." "Oh, bother his sermons! I don't care anything about his sermons now. He is a very good clergyman, and the Dean thinks very much about him." "I am glad of that, Aunt Stanbury." Then came the shock. "Don't you think it would be a very good thing if you were to become Mrs. Gibson?" It may be presumed that Miss Stanbury had assured herself that she could not make progress with Dorothy by "beating about the bush." There was an inaptitude in her niece to comprehend the advantages of the situations, which made some direct explanation absolutely necessary. Dorothy stood half-smiling, half-crying, when she heard the proposition, her cheeks suffused with that pink colour, and with both her hands extended with surprise. "I've been thinking about it ever since you've been here," said Miss Stanbury. "I think he likes Miss French," said Dorothy, in a whisper. "Which of them? I don't believe he likes them at all. Maybe, if they go on long enough, they may be able to toss up for him. But I don't think it of him. Of course they're after him, but he'll be too wise for them. And he's more of a fool than I take him to be if he don't prefer you to them." Dorothy remained quite silent. To such an address as this it was impossible that she should reply a word. It was incredible to her that any man should prefer herself to either of the young women in question; but she was too much confounded for the expression even of her humility. "At any rate you're wholesome, and pleasant and modest," said Miss Stanbury. Dorothy did not quite like being told that she was wholesome; but, nevertheless, she was thankful to her aunt. "I'll tell you what it is," continued Miss Stanbury; "I hate all mysteries, especially with those I love. I've saved two thousand pounds, which I've put you down for in my will. Now, if you and he can make it up together, I'll give you the money at once. There's no knowing how often an old woman may alter her will; but when you've got a thing, you've got it. Mr. Gibson would know the meaning of a bird in the hand as well as anybody. Now those girls at Heavitree will never have above a few hundreds each, and not that while their mother lives." Dorothy made one little attempt at squeezing her aunt's hand, wishing to thank her aunt for this affectionate generosity; but she had hardly accomplished the squeeze, when she desisted, feeling strangely averse to any acknowledgment of such a boon as that which had been offered to her. "And now, good night, my dear. If I did not think you a very sensible young woman, I should not trust you by saying all this." Then they parted, and Dorothy soon found herself alone in her bedroom. To have a husband of her own, a perfect gentleman too, and a clergyman;--and to go to him with a fortune! She believed that two thousand pounds represented nearly a hundred a year. It was a large fortune in those parts,--according to her understanding of ladies' fortunes. And that she, the humblest of the humble, should be selected for so honourable a position! She had never quite known, quite understood as yet, whether she had made good her footing in her aunt's house in a manner pleasant to her aunt. More than once or twice she had spoken even of going back to her mother, and things had been said which had almost made her think that her aunt had been angry with her. But now, after a month or two of joint residence, her aunt was offering to her--two thousand pounds and a husband! But was it within her aunt's power to offer to her the husband? Mr. Gibson had always been very civil to her. She had spoken more to Mr. Gibson than to any other man in Exeter. But it had never occurred to her for a moment that Mr. Gibson had any special liking for her. Was it probable that he would ever entertain any feeling of that kind for her? It certainly had occurred to her before now that Mr. Gibson was sometimes bored by the Miss Frenches;--but then gentlemen do get bored by ladies. And at last she asked herself another question,--had she any special liking for Mr. Gibson? As far as she understood such matters everything was blank there. Thinking of that other question, she went to sleep. CHAPTER XXIII. COLONEL OSBORNE AND MR. BOZZLE RETURN TO LONDON. Hugh Stanbury went down on the Saturday, by the early express to Exeter, on his road to Lessboro'. He took his ticket through to Lessboro', not purposing to stay at Exeter; but, from the exigencies of the various trains, it was necessary that he should remain for half an hour at the Exeter Station. This took place on the Saturday, and Colonel Osborne's visit to the Clock House had been made on the Friday. Colonel Osborne had returned to Lessboro', had slept again at Mrs. Clegg's house, and returned to London on the Saturday. It so happened that he also was obliged to spend half an hour at the Exeter Station, and that his half-hour, and Hugh Stanbury's half-hour, were one and the same. They met, therefore, as a matter of course, upon the platform. Stanbury was the first to see the other, and he found that he must determine on the spur of the moment what he would say, and what he would do. He had received no direct commission from Trevelyan as to his meeting with Colonel Osborne. Trevelyan had declared that, as to the matter of quarrelling, he meant to retain the privilege of doing that for himself; but Stanbury had quite understood that this was only the vague expression of an angry man. The Colonel had taken a glass of sherry, and had lighted a cigar, and was quite comfortable,--having thrown aside, for a time, that consciousness of the futility of his journey which had perplexed him,--when Stanbury accosted him. "What! Mr. Stanbury,--how do you do? Fine day, isn't it? Are you going up or down?" "I'm going to see my own people at Nuncombe Putney, a village beyond Lessboro'," said Hugh. "Ah;--indeed." Colonel Osborne of course perceived at once that as this man was going to the house at which he had just been visiting, it would be better that he should himself explain what he had done. If he were to allow this mention of Nuncombe Putney to pass without saying that he himself had been there, he would be convicted of at least some purpose of secrecy in what he had been doing. "Very strange," said he; "I was at Nuncombe Putney myself yesterday." "I know you were," said Stanbury. "And how did you know it?" There had been a tone of anger in Stanbury's voice which Colonel Osborne had at once appreciated, and which made him assume a similar tone. As they spoke there was a man standing in a corner close by the bookstall, with his eye upon them, and that man was Bozzle, the ex-policeman,--who was doing his duty with sedulous activity by seeing "the Colonel" back to London. Now Bozzle did not know Hugh Stanbury, and was angry with himself that he should be so ignorant. It is the pride of a detective ex-policeman to know everybody that comes in his way. "Well, I had been so informed. My friend Trevelyan knew that you were there,--or that you were going there." "I don't care who knew that I was going there," said the Colonel. "I won't pretend to understand how that may be, Colonel Osborne; but I think you must be aware, after what took place in Curzon Street, that it would have been better that you should not have attempted to see Mrs. Trevelyan. Whether you have seen her I do not know." "What business is it of yours, Mr. Stanbury, whether I have seen that lady or not?" "Unhappily for me, her husband has made it my business." "Very unhappily for you, I should say." "And the lady is staying at my mother's house." "I presume the lady is not a prisoner in your mother's house, and that your mother's hospitality is not so restricted but that her guest may see an old friend under her roof." This Colonel Osborne said with an assumed look of almost righteous indignation, which was not at all lost upon Bozzle. They had returned back towards the bookstall, and Bozzle, with his eyes fixed on a copy of the "D. R." which he had just bought, was straining his ears to the utmost to catch what was being said. "You best know whether you have seen her or not." "I have seen her." "Then I shall take leave to tell you, Colonel Osborne, that you have acted in a most unfriendly way, and have done that which must tend to keep an affectionate husband apart from his wife." "Sir, I don't at all understand this kind of thing addressed to me. The father of the lady you are speaking of has been my most intimate friend for thirty years." After all, the Colonel was a mean man when he could take pride in his youth, and defend himself on the score of his age, in one and the same proceeding. "I have nothing further to say," replied Stanbury. "You have said too much already, Mr. Stanbury." "I think not, Colonel Osborne. You have, I fear, done an incredible deal of mischief by going to Nuncombe Putney; and, after all that you have heard on the subject, you must have known that it would be mischievous. I cannot understand how you can | misery | How many times the word 'misery' appears in the text? | 1 |
very great,--so great that in its first flush she could not restrain herself from exhibiting it to Dorothy. "Well,--well,--what do you think, Dolly?" "About what, aunt? I don't know who the letter is from." "Nobody writes to me now so constant as your sister Priscilla. The letter is from Priscilla. Colonel Osborne has been at the Clock House, after all. I knew that he would be there. I knew it! I knew it!" Dorothy, when she heard this, was dumbfounded. She had rested her defence of her mother and sister on the impossibility of any such visit being admitted. According to her lights the coming of Colonel Osborne, after all that had been said, would be like the coming of Lucifer himself. The Colonel was, to her imagination, a horrible roaring lion. She had no idea that the erratic manoeuvres of such a beast might be milder and more innocent than the wooing of any turtle-dove. She would have asked whether the roaring lion had gone away again, and, if so, whether he had taken his prey with him, were it not that she was too much frightened at the moment to ask any question. That her mother and sister should have been wilfully concerned in such iniquity was quite incredible to her, but yet she did not know how to defend them. "But are you quite sure of it, Aunt Stanbury? May there not be another mistake?" "No mistake this time, I think, my dear. Any way, Priscilla says that he is there." Now in this there was a mistake. Priscilla had said nothing of the kind. "You don't mean that he is staying at the Clock House, Aunt Stanbury?" "I don't know where he is now. I'm not his keeper. And, I'm glad to say, I'm not the lady's keeper either. Ah, me! It's a bad business. You can't touch pitch and not be defiled, my dear. If your mother wanted the Clock House, I would sooner have taken it for her myself than that all this should have happened,--for the family's sake." But Miss Stanbury, when she was alone, and when she had read her niece's three letters again and again, began to understand something of Priscilla's honesty, and began also to perceive that there might have been a great difficulty respecting the Colonel, for which neither her niece nor her sister-in-law could fairly be held to be responsible. It was perhaps the plainest characteristic of all the Stanburys that they were never wilfully dishonest. Ignorant, prejudiced, and passionate they might be. In her anger Miss Stanbury, of Exeter, could be almost malicious; and her niece at Nuncombe Putney was very like her aunt. Each could say most cruel things, most unjust things, when actuated by a mistaken consciousness of perfect right on her own side. But neither of them could lie,--even by silence. Let an error be brought home to either of them,--so as to be acknowledged at home,--and the error would be assuredly confessed aloud. And, indeed, with differences in the shades, Hugh and Dorothy were of the same nature. They were possessed of sweeter tempers than their aunt and sister, but they were filled with the same eager readiness to believe themselves to be right,--and to own themselves to others to be wrong, when they had been constrained to make such confession to themselves. The chances of life, and something probably of inner nature, had made Dorothy mild and obedient; whereas, in regard to Hugh, the circumstances of his life and disposition had made him obstinate and self-reliant. But in all was to be found the same belief in self,--which amounted almost to conceit,--the same warmth of affection, and the same love of justice. When Miss Stanbury had again perused the correspondence, and had come to see, dimly, how things had gone at Nuncombe Putney,--when the conviction came upon her mind that Priscilla had entertained a horror as to the coming of this Colonel equal to that which she herself had felt,--when her imagination painted to her all that her niece had suffered, her heart was softened somewhat. She had declared to Dorothy that pitch, if touched, would certainly defile; and she had, at first, intended to send the same opinion, couched in very forcible words, to her correspondents at the Clock House. They should not continue to go astray for want of being told that they were going astray. It must be acknowledged, too, that there was a certain amount of ignoble wrath in the bosom of Miss Stanbury because her sister-in-law had taken the Clock House. She had never been told, and had not even condescended to ask Dorothy, whether the house was taken and paid for by her nephew on behalf of his mother, or whether it was paid for by Mr. Trevelyan on behalf of his wife. In the latter case, Mrs. Stanbury would, she thought, be little more than an upper servant, or keeper,--as she expressed it to herself. Such an arrangement appeared to her to be quite disgraceful in a Stanbury; but yet she believed that such must be the existing arrangement, as she could not bring herself to conceive that Hugh Stanbury could keep such an establishment over his mother's head out of money earned by writing for a penny newspaper. There would be a triumph of democracy in this which would vanquish her altogether. She had, therefore, been anxious enough to trample on Priscilla and upon all the affairs of the Clock House; but yet she had been unable to ignore the nobility of Priscilla's truth, and having acknowledged it to herself she found herself compelled to acknowledge it aloud. She sat down to think in silence, and it was not till she had fortified herself by her first draught of beer, and till she had finished her first portion of bread and cheese, that she spoke. "I have written to your sister herself, this time," she said. "I don't know that I ever wrote a line to her before in my life." "Poor Priscilla!" Dorothy did not mean to be severe on her aunt, either in regard to the letters which had not been written, or to the one letter which now had been written. But Dorothy pitied her sister, whom she felt to be in trouble. "Well; I don't know about her being so poor. Priscilla, I'll be bound, thinks as well of herself as any of us do." "She'd cut her fingers off before she'd mean to do wrong," said Dorothy. "But what does that come to? What's the good of that? It isn't meaning to do right that will save us. For aught I know, the Radicals may mean to do right. Mr. Beales means to do right--perhaps." "But, aunt,--if everybody did the best they could?" "Tush, my dear! you are getting beyond your depth. There are such things still, thank God! as spiritual pastors and masters. Entrust yourself to them. Do what they think right." Now if aught were known in Exeter of Miss Stanbury, this was known,--that if any clergyman volunteered to give to her, unasked and uninvited, counsel, either ghostly or bodily, that clergyman would be sent from her presence with a wigging which he would not soon forget. The thing had been tried more than once, and the wigging had been complete. There was no more attentive listener in church than Miss Stanbury; and she would, now and again, appeal to a clergyman on some knotty point. But for the ordinary authority of spiritual pastors and masters she shewed more of abstract reverence than of practical obedience. "I'm sure Priscilla does the best she can," said Dorothy, going back to the old subject. "Ah,--well,--yes. What I want to say about Priscilla is this. It is a thousand pities she is so obstinate, so pig-headed, so certain that she can manage everything for herself better than anybody else can for her." Miss Stanbury was striving to say something good of her niece, but found the task to be difficult and distasteful to her. "She has managed for mamma ever so many years; and since she took it we have hardly ever been in debt," said Dorothy. "She'll do all that, I don't doubt. I don't suppose she cares much for ribbons and false hair for herself." "Who? Priscilla! The idea of Priscilla with false hair!" "I dare say not;--I dare say not. I do not think she'd spend her mother's money on things of that kind." "Aunt Stanbury, you don't know her." "Ah; very well. Perhaps I don't. But, come, my dear, you are very hard upon me, and very anxious to take your sister's part. And what is it all about? I've just written to her as civil a letter as one woman ever wrote to another. And if I had chosen, I could have,--could have,--h--m--m." Miss Stanbury, as she hesitated for words in which to complete her sentence, revelled in the strength of the vituperation which she could have poured upon her niece's head, had she chosen to write her last letter about Colonel Osborne in her severe strain. "If you have written kindly to her, I am so much obliged to you," said Dorothy. "The truth is, Priscilla has meant to be right. Meaning won't go for much when the account is taken, unless the meaning comes from a proper source. But the poor girl has done as well as she has known how. I believe it is Hugh's fault more than anybody else's." This accusation was not pleasant to Dorothy, but she was too intent just now on Priscilla's case to defend her brother. "That man never ought to have been there; and that woman never ought to have been there. There cannot be a doubt about that. If Priscilla were sitting there opposite to me, she would own as much. I am sure she would." Miss Stanbury was quite right if she meant to assert that Priscilla had owned as much to herself. "And because I think so, I am willing to forgive her part in the matter. To me, personally, she has always been rude,--most uncourteous,--and,--and,--and unlike a younger woman to an older one, and an aunt, and all that. I suppose it is because she hates me." "Oh, no, Aunt Stanbury!" "My dear, I suppose it is. Why else should she treat me in such a way? But I do believe of her that she would rather eat an honest, dry crust, than dishonest cake and ale." "She would rather starve than pick up a crumb that was dishonest," said Dorothy, fairly bursting out into tears. "I believe it. I do believe it. There; what more can I say? Clock House, indeed! What matter what house you live in, so that you can pay the rent of it honestly?" "But the rent is paid--honestly," said Dorothy, amidst her sobs. "It's paid, I don't doubt. I dare say the woman's husband and your brother see to that among them. Oh, that my boy, Hugh, as he used to be, should have brought us all to this! But there's no knowing what they won't do among them. Reform, indeed! Murder, sacrilege, adultery, treason, atheism;--that's what Reform means; besides every kind of nastiness under the sun." In which latter category Miss Stanbury intended especially to include bad printer's ink, and paper made of straw. The reader may as well see the letter which was as civil a letter as ever one woman wrote to another, so that the collection of the Stanbury correspondence may be made perfect. The Close, August 6, 186--. MY DEAR NIECE, Your letter has not astonished me nearly as much as you expected it would. I am an older woman than you, and, though you will not believe it, I have seen more of the world. I knew that the gentleman would come after the lady. Such gentlemen always do go after their ladies. As for yourself, I can see all that you have done, and pretty nearly hear all that you have said, as plain as a pike-staff. I do you the credit of believing that the plan is none of your making. I know who made the plan, and a very bad plan it is. As to my former letters and the other man, I understand all about it. You were very angry that I should accuse you of having this man at the house; and you were right to be angry. I respect you for having been angry. But what does all that say as to his coming,--now that he has come? If you will consent to take an old woman's advice, get rid of the whole boiling of them. I say it in firm love and friendship, for I am,-- Your affectionate aunt, JEMIMA STANBURY. The special vaunted courtesy of this letter consisted, no doubt, in the expression of respect which it contained, and in that declaration of affection with which it terminated. The epithet was one which Miss Stanbury would by no means use promiscuously in writing to her nearest relatives. She had not intended to use it when she commenced her letter to Priscilla. But the respect of which she had spoken had glowed, and had warmed itself into something of temporary love; and feeling at the moment that she was an affectionate aunt, Miss Stanbury had so put herself down in her letter. Having done such a deed she felt that Dorothy, though Dorothy knew nothing about it, ought in her gratitude to listen patiently to anything that she might now choose to say against Priscilla. But Dorothy was in truth very miserable, and in her misery wrote a long letter that afternoon to her mother,--which, however, it will not be necessary to place entire among the Stanbury records,--begging that she might be informed as to the true circumstances of the case. She did not say a word of censure in regard either to her mother or sister; but she expressed an opinion in the mildest words which she could use, that if anything had happened which had compromised their names since their residence at the Clock House, she, Dorothy, had better go home and join them. The meaning of which was that it would not become her to remain in the house in the Close, if the house in the Close would be disgraced by her presence. Poor Dorothy had taught herself to think that the iniquity of roaring lions spread itself very widely. In the afternoon she made some such proposition to her aunt in ambiguous terms. "Go home!" said Miss Stanbury. "Now?" "If you think it best, Aunt Stanbury." "And put yourself in the middle of all this iniquity and abomination! I don't suppose you want to know the woman?" "No, indeed!" "Or the man?" "Oh, Aunt Stanbury!" "It's my belief that no decent gentleman in Exeter would look at you again if you were to go and live among them at Nuncombe Putney while all this is going on. No, no. Let one of you be saved out of it, at least." Aunt Stanbury had more than once made use of expressions which brought the faintest touch of gentle pink up to her niece's cheeks. We must do Dorothy the justice of saying that she had never dreamed of being looked at by any gentleman, whether decent or indecent. Her life at Nuncombe Putney had been of such a nature, that though she knew that other girls were looked at, and even made love to, and that they got married and had children, no dim vision of such a career for herself had ever presented itself to her eyes. She had known very well that her mother and sister and herself were people apart,--ladies, and yet so extremely poor, that they could only maintain their rank by the most rigid seclusion. To live, and work unseen, was what the world had ordained for her. Then her call to Exeter had come upon her, and she had conceived that she was henceforth to be the humble companion of a very imperious old aunt. Her aunt, indeed, was imperious, but did not seem to require humility in her companion. All the good things that were eaten and drunk were divided between them with the strictest impartiality. Dorothy's cushion and hassock in the church and in the cathedral were the same as her aunt's. Her bed-room was made very comfortable for her. Her aunt never gave her any orders before company, and always spoke of her before the servants as one whom they were to obey and respect. Gradually Dorothy came to understand the meaning of this;--but her aunt would sometimes say things about young men which she did not quite understand. Could it be that her aunt supposed that any young man would come and wish to marry her,--her, Dorothy Stanbury? She herself had not quite so strong an aversion to men in general as that which Priscilla felt, but she had not as yet found that any of those whom she had seen at Exeter were peculiarly agreeable to her. Before she went to bed that night her aunt said a word to her which startled her more than she had ever been startled before. On that evening Miss Stanbury had a few friends to drink tea with her. There were Mr. and Mrs. Crumbie, and Mrs. MacHugh of course, and the Cheritons from Alphington, and the Miss Apjohns from Helion Villa, and old Mr. Powel all the way from Haldon, and two of the Wrights from their house in the Northernhay, and Mr. Gibson;--but the Miss Frenches from Heavitree were not there. "Why don't you have the Miss Frenches, aunt?" Dorothy had asked. "Bother the Miss Frenches! I'm not bound to have them every time. There's Camilla has been and got herself a band-box on the back of her head a great deal bigger than the place inside where her brains ought to be." But the band-box at the back of Camilla French's head was not the sole cause of the omission of the two sisters from the list of Miss Stanbury's visitors on this occasion. The party went off very much as usual. There were two whist tables, for Miss Stanbury could not bear to cut out. At other houses than her own, when there was cutting out, it was quite understood that Miss Stanbury was to be allowed to keep her place. "I'll go away, and sit out there by myself, if you like," she would say. But she was never thus banished; and at her own house she usually contrived that there should be no system of banishment. She would play dummy whist, preferring it to the four-handed game; and, when hard driven, and with a meet opponent, would not even despise double-dummy. It was told of her and of Mrs. MacHugh that they had played double-dummy for a whole evening together; and they who were given to calumny had declared that the candles on that evening had been lighted very early. On the present occasion a great many sixpenny points were scored, and much tea and cake were consumed. Mr. Gibson never played whist,--nor did Dorothy. That young John Wright and Mary Cheriton should do nothing but talk to each other was a thing of course, as they were to be married in a month or two. Then there was Ida Cheriton, who could not very well be left at home; and Mr. Gibson made himself pleasant to Dorothy and Ida Cheriton, instead of making himself pleasant to the two Miss Frenches. Gentlemen in provincial towns quite understand that, from the nature of social circumstances in the provinces, they should always be ready to be pleasant at least to a pair at a time. At a few minutes before twelve they were all gone, and then came the shock. "Dolly, my dear, what do you think of Mr. Gibson?" "Think of him, Aunt Stanbury?" "Yes; think of him;--think of him. I suppose you know how to think?" "He seems to me always to preach very drawling sermons." "Oh, bother his sermons! I don't care anything about his sermons now. He is a very good clergyman, and the Dean thinks very much about him." "I am glad of that, Aunt Stanbury." Then came the shock. "Don't you think it would be a very good thing if you were to become Mrs. Gibson?" It may be presumed that Miss Stanbury had assured herself that she could not make progress with Dorothy by "beating about the bush." There was an inaptitude in her niece to comprehend the advantages of the situations, which made some direct explanation absolutely necessary. Dorothy stood half-smiling, half-crying, when she heard the proposition, her cheeks suffused with that pink colour, and with both her hands extended with surprise. "I've been thinking about it ever since you've been here," said Miss Stanbury. "I think he likes Miss French," said Dorothy, in a whisper. "Which of them? I don't believe he likes them at all. Maybe, if they go on long enough, they may be able to toss up for him. But I don't think it of him. Of course they're after him, but he'll be too wise for them. And he's more of a fool than I take him to be if he don't prefer you to them." Dorothy remained quite silent. To such an address as this it was impossible that she should reply a word. It was incredible to her that any man should prefer herself to either of the young women in question; but she was too much confounded for the expression even of her humility. "At any rate you're wholesome, and pleasant and modest," said Miss Stanbury. Dorothy did not quite like being told that she was wholesome; but, nevertheless, she was thankful to her aunt. "I'll tell you what it is," continued Miss Stanbury; "I hate all mysteries, especially with those I love. I've saved two thousand pounds, which I've put you down for in my will. Now, if you and he can make it up together, I'll give you the money at once. There's no knowing how often an old woman may alter her will; but when you've got a thing, you've got it. Mr. Gibson would know the meaning of a bird in the hand as well as anybody. Now those girls at Heavitree will never have above a few hundreds each, and not that while their mother lives." Dorothy made one little attempt at squeezing her aunt's hand, wishing to thank her aunt for this affectionate generosity; but she had hardly accomplished the squeeze, when she desisted, feeling strangely averse to any acknowledgment of such a boon as that which had been offered to her. "And now, good night, my dear. If I did not think you a very sensible young woman, I should not trust you by saying all this." Then they parted, and Dorothy soon found herself alone in her bedroom. To have a husband of her own, a perfect gentleman too, and a clergyman;--and to go to him with a fortune! She believed that two thousand pounds represented nearly a hundred a year. It was a large fortune in those parts,--according to her understanding of ladies' fortunes. And that she, the humblest of the humble, should be selected for so honourable a position! She had never quite known, quite understood as yet, whether she had made good her footing in her aunt's house in a manner pleasant to her aunt. More than once or twice she had spoken even of going back to her mother, and things had been said which had almost made her think that her aunt had been angry with her. But now, after a month or two of joint residence, her aunt was offering to her--two thousand pounds and a husband! But was it within her aunt's power to offer to her the husband? Mr. Gibson had always been very civil to her. She had spoken more to Mr. Gibson than to any other man in Exeter. But it had never occurred to her for a moment that Mr. Gibson had any special liking for her. Was it probable that he would ever entertain any feeling of that kind for her? It certainly had occurred to her before now that Mr. Gibson was sometimes bored by the Miss Frenches;--but then gentlemen do get bored by ladies. And at last she asked herself another question,--had she any special liking for Mr. Gibson? As far as she understood such matters everything was blank there. Thinking of that other question, she went to sleep. CHAPTER XXIII. COLONEL OSBORNE AND MR. BOZZLE RETURN TO LONDON. Hugh Stanbury went down on the Saturday, by the early express to Exeter, on his road to Lessboro'. He took his ticket through to Lessboro', not purposing to stay at Exeter; but, from the exigencies of the various trains, it was necessary that he should remain for half an hour at the Exeter Station. This took place on the Saturday, and Colonel Osborne's visit to the Clock House had been made on the Friday. Colonel Osborne had returned to Lessboro', had slept again at Mrs. Clegg's house, and returned to London on the Saturday. It so happened that he also was obliged to spend half an hour at the Exeter Station, and that his half-hour, and Hugh Stanbury's half-hour, were one and the same. They met, therefore, as a matter of course, upon the platform. Stanbury was the first to see the other, and he found that he must determine on the spur of the moment what he would say, and what he would do. He had received no direct commission from Trevelyan as to his meeting with Colonel Osborne. Trevelyan had declared that, as to the matter of quarrelling, he meant to retain the privilege of doing that for himself; but Stanbury had quite understood that this was only the vague expression of an angry man. The Colonel had taken a glass of sherry, and had lighted a cigar, and was quite comfortable,--having thrown aside, for a time, that consciousness of the futility of his journey which had perplexed him,--when Stanbury accosted him. "What! Mr. Stanbury,--how do you do? Fine day, isn't it? Are you going up or down?" "I'm going to see my own people at Nuncombe Putney, a village beyond Lessboro'," said Hugh. "Ah;--indeed." Colonel Osborne of course perceived at once that as this man was going to the house at which he had just been visiting, it would be better that he should himself explain what he had done. If he were to allow this mention of Nuncombe Putney to pass without saying that he himself had been there, he would be convicted of at least some purpose of secrecy in what he had been doing. "Very strange," said he; "I was at Nuncombe Putney myself yesterday." "I know you were," said Stanbury. "And how did you know it?" There had been a tone of anger in Stanbury's voice which Colonel Osborne had at once appreciated, and which made him assume a similar tone. As they spoke there was a man standing in a corner close by the bookstall, with his eye upon them, and that man was Bozzle, the ex-policeman,--who was doing his duty with sedulous activity by seeing "the Colonel" back to London. Now Bozzle did not know Hugh Stanbury, and was angry with himself that he should be so ignorant. It is the pride of a detective ex-policeman to know everybody that comes in his way. "Well, I had been so informed. My friend Trevelyan knew that you were there,--or that you were going there." "I don't care who knew that I was going there," said the Colonel. "I won't pretend to understand how that may be, Colonel Osborne; but I think you must be aware, after what took place in Curzon Street, that it would have been better that you should not have attempted to see Mrs. Trevelyan. Whether you have seen her I do not know." "What business is it of yours, Mr. Stanbury, whether I have seen that lady or not?" "Unhappily for me, her husband has made it my business." "Very unhappily for you, I should say." "And the lady is staying at my mother's house." "I presume the lady is not a prisoner in your mother's house, and that your mother's hospitality is not so restricted but that her guest may see an old friend under her roof." This Colonel Osborne said with an assumed look of almost righteous indignation, which was not at all lost upon Bozzle. They had returned back towards the bookstall, and Bozzle, with his eyes fixed on a copy of the "D. R." which he had just bought, was straining his ears to the utmost to catch what was being said. "You best know whether you have seen her or not." "I have seen her." "Then I shall take leave to tell you, Colonel Osborne, that you have acted in a most unfriendly way, and have done that which must tend to keep an affectionate husband apart from his wife." "Sir, I don't at all understand this kind of thing addressed to me. The father of the lady you are speaking of has been my most intimate friend for thirty years." After all, the Colonel was a mean man when he could take pride in his youth, and defend himself on the score of his age, in one and the same proceeding. "I have nothing further to say," replied Stanbury. "You have said too much already, Mr. Stanbury." "I think not, Colonel Osborne. You have, I fear, done an incredible deal of mischief by going to Nuncombe Putney; and, after all that you have heard on the subject, you must have known that it would be mischievous. I cannot understand how you can | snout | How many times the word 'snout' appears in the text? | 0 |
very great,--so great that in its first flush she could not restrain herself from exhibiting it to Dorothy. "Well,--well,--what do you think, Dolly?" "About what, aunt? I don't know who the letter is from." "Nobody writes to me now so constant as your sister Priscilla. The letter is from Priscilla. Colonel Osborne has been at the Clock House, after all. I knew that he would be there. I knew it! I knew it!" Dorothy, when she heard this, was dumbfounded. She had rested her defence of her mother and sister on the impossibility of any such visit being admitted. According to her lights the coming of Colonel Osborne, after all that had been said, would be like the coming of Lucifer himself. The Colonel was, to her imagination, a horrible roaring lion. She had no idea that the erratic manoeuvres of such a beast might be milder and more innocent than the wooing of any turtle-dove. She would have asked whether the roaring lion had gone away again, and, if so, whether he had taken his prey with him, were it not that she was too much frightened at the moment to ask any question. That her mother and sister should have been wilfully concerned in such iniquity was quite incredible to her, but yet she did not know how to defend them. "But are you quite sure of it, Aunt Stanbury? May there not be another mistake?" "No mistake this time, I think, my dear. Any way, Priscilla says that he is there." Now in this there was a mistake. Priscilla had said nothing of the kind. "You don't mean that he is staying at the Clock House, Aunt Stanbury?" "I don't know where he is now. I'm not his keeper. And, I'm glad to say, I'm not the lady's keeper either. Ah, me! It's a bad business. You can't touch pitch and not be defiled, my dear. If your mother wanted the Clock House, I would sooner have taken it for her myself than that all this should have happened,--for the family's sake." But Miss Stanbury, when she was alone, and when she had read her niece's three letters again and again, began to understand something of Priscilla's honesty, and began also to perceive that there might have been a great difficulty respecting the Colonel, for which neither her niece nor her sister-in-law could fairly be held to be responsible. It was perhaps the plainest characteristic of all the Stanburys that they were never wilfully dishonest. Ignorant, prejudiced, and passionate they might be. In her anger Miss Stanbury, of Exeter, could be almost malicious; and her niece at Nuncombe Putney was very like her aunt. Each could say most cruel things, most unjust things, when actuated by a mistaken consciousness of perfect right on her own side. But neither of them could lie,--even by silence. Let an error be brought home to either of them,--so as to be acknowledged at home,--and the error would be assuredly confessed aloud. And, indeed, with differences in the shades, Hugh and Dorothy were of the same nature. They were possessed of sweeter tempers than their aunt and sister, but they were filled with the same eager readiness to believe themselves to be right,--and to own themselves to others to be wrong, when they had been constrained to make such confession to themselves. The chances of life, and something probably of inner nature, had made Dorothy mild and obedient; whereas, in regard to Hugh, the circumstances of his life and disposition had made him obstinate and self-reliant. But in all was to be found the same belief in self,--which amounted almost to conceit,--the same warmth of affection, and the same love of justice. When Miss Stanbury had again perused the correspondence, and had come to see, dimly, how things had gone at Nuncombe Putney,--when the conviction came upon her mind that Priscilla had entertained a horror as to the coming of this Colonel equal to that which she herself had felt,--when her imagination painted to her all that her niece had suffered, her heart was softened somewhat. She had declared to Dorothy that pitch, if touched, would certainly defile; and she had, at first, intended to send the same opinion, couched in very forcible words, to her correspondents at the Clock House. They should not continue to go astray for want of being told that they were going astray. It must be acknowledged, too, that there was a certain amount of ignoble wrath in the bosom of Miss Stanbury because her sister-in-law had taken the Clock House. She had never been told, and had not even condescended to ask Dorothy, whether the house was taken and paid for by her nephew on behalf of his mother, or whether it was paid for by Mr. Trevelyan on behalf of his wife. In the latter case, Mrs. Stanbury would, she thought, be little more than an upper servant, or keeper,--as she expressed it to herself. Such an arrangement appeared to her to be quite disgraceful in a Stanbury; but yet she believed that such must be the existing arrangement, as she could not bring herself to conceive that Hugh Stanbury could keep such an establishment over his mother's head out of money earned by writing for a penny newspaper. There would be a triumph of democracy in this which would vanquish her altogether. She had, therefore, been anxious enough to trample on Priscilla and upon all the affairs of the Clock House; but yet she had been unable to ignore the nobility of Priscilla's truth, and having acknowledged it to herself she found herself compelled to acknowledge it aloud. She sat down to think in silence, and it was not till she had fortified herself by her first draught of beer, and till she had finished her first portion of bread and cheese, that she spoke. "I have written to your sister herself, this time," she said. "I don't know that I ever wrote a line to her before in my life." "Poor Priscilla!" Dorothy did not mean to be severe on her aunt, either in regard to the letters which had not been written, or to the one letter which now had been written. But Dorothy pitied her sister, whom she felt to be in trouble. "Well; I don't know about her being so poor. Priscilla, I'll be bound, thinks as well of herself as any of us do." "She'd cut her fingers off before she'd mean to do wrong," said Dorothy. "But what does that come to? What's the good of that? It isn't meaning to do right that will save us. For aught I know, the Radicals may mean to do right. Mr. Beales means to do right--perhaps." "But, aunt,--if everybody did the best they could?" "Tush, my dear! you are getting beyond your depth. There are such things still, thank God! as spiritual pastors and masters. Entrust yourself to them. Do what they think right." Now if aught were known in Exeter of Miss Stanbury, this was known,--that if any clergyman volunteered to give to her, unasked and uninvited, counsel, either ghostly or bodily, that clergyman would be sent from her presence with a wigging which he would not soon forget. The thing had been tried more than once, and the wigging had been complete. There was no more attentive listener in church than Miss Stanbury; and she would, now and again, appeal to a clergyman on some knotty point. But for the ordinary authority of spiritual pastors and masters she shewed more of abstract reverence than of practical obedience. "I'm sure Priscilla does the best she can," said Dorothy, going back to the old subject. "Ah,--well,--yes. What I want to say about Priscilla is this. It is a thousand pities she is so obstinate, so pig-headed, so certain that she can manage everything for herself better than anybody else can for her." Miss Stanbury was striving to say something good of her niece, but found the task to be difficult and distasteful to her. "She has managed for mamma ever so many years; and since she took it we have hardly ever been in debt," said Dorothy. "She'll do all that, I don't doubt. I don't suppose she cares much for ribbons and false hair for herself." "Who? Priscilla! The idea of Priscilla with false hair!" "I dare say not;--I dare say not. I do not think she'd spend her mother's money on things of that kind." "Aunt Stanbury, you don't know her." "Ah; very well. Perhaps I don't. But, come, my dear, you are very hard upon me, and very anxious to take your sister's part. And what is it all about? I've just written to her as civil a letter as one woman ever wrote to another. And if I had chosen, I could have,--could have,--h--m--m." Miss Stanbury, as she hesitated for words in which to complete her sentence, revelled in the strength of the vituperation which she could have poured upon her niece's head, had she chosen to write her last letter about Colonel Osborne in her severe strain. "If you have written kindly to her, I am so much obliged to you," said Dorothy. "The truth is, Priscilla has meant to be right. Meaning won't go for much when the account is taken, unless the meaning comes from a proper source. But the poor girl has done as well as she has known how. I believe it is Hugh's fault more than anybody else's." This accusation was not pleasant to Dorothy, but she was too intent just now on Priscilla's case to defend her brother. "That man never ought to have been there; and that woman never ought to have been there. There cannot be a doubt about that. If Priscilla were sitting there opposite to me, she would own as much. I am sure she would." Miss Stanbury was quite right if she meant to assert that Priscilla had owned as much to herself. "And because I think so, I am willing to forgive her part in the matter. To me, personally, she has always been rude,--most uncourteous,--and,--and,--and unlike a younger woman to an older one, and an aunt, and all that. I suppose it is because she hates me." "Oh, no, Aunt Stanbury!" "My dear, I suppose it is. Why else should she treat me in such a way? But I do believe of her that she would rather eat an honest, dry crust, than dishonest cake and ale." "She would rather starve than pick up a crumb that was dishonest," said Dorothy, fairly bursting out into tears. "I believe it. I do believe it. There; what more can I say? Clock House, indeed! What matter what house you live in, so that you can pay the rent of it honestly?" "But the rent is paid--honestly," said Dorothy, amidst her sobs. "It's paid, I don't doubt. I dare say the woman's husband and your brother see to that among them. Oh, that my boy, Hugh, as he used to be, should have brought us all to this! But there's no knowing what they won't do among them. Reform, indeed! Murder, sacrilege, adultery, treason, atheism;--that's what Reform means; besides every kind of nastiness under the sun." In which latter category Miss Stanbury intended especially to include bad printer's ink, and paper made of straw. The reader may as well see the letter which was as civil a letter as ever one woman wrote to another, so that the collection of the Stanbury correspondence may be made perfect. The Close, August 6, 186--. MY DEAR NIECE, Your letter has not astonished me nearly as much as you expected it would. I am an older woman than you, and, though you will not believe it, I have seen more of the world. I knew that the gentleman would come after the lady. Such gentlemen always do go after their ladies. As for yourself, I can see all that you have done, and pretty nearly hear all that you have said, as plain as a pike-staff. I do you the credit of believing that the plan is none of your making. I know who made the plan, and a very bad plan it is. As to my former letters and the other man, I understand all about it. You were very angry that I should accuse you of having this man at the house; and you were right to be angry. I respect you for having been angry. But what does all that say as to his coming,--now that he has come? If you will consent to take an old woman's advice, get rid of the whole boiling of them. I say it in firm love and friendship, for I am,-- Your affectionate aunt, JEMIMA STANBURY. The special vaunted courtesy of this letter consisted, no doubt, in the expression of respect which it contained, and in that declaration of affection with which it terminated. The epithet was one which Miss Stanbury would by no means use promiscuously in writing to her nearest relatives. She had not intended to use it when she commenced her letter to Priscilla. But the respect of which she had spoken had glowed, and had warmed itself into something of temporary love; and feeling at the moment that she was an affectionate aunt, Miss Stanbury had so put herself down in her letter. Having done such a deed she felt that Dorothy, though Dorothy knew nothing about it, ought in her gratitude to listen patiently to anything that she might now choose to say against Priscilla. But Dorothy was in truth very miserable, and in her misery wrote a long letter that afternoon to her mother,--which, however, it will not be necessary to place entire among the Stanbury records,--begging that she might be informed as to the true circumstances of the case. She did not say a word of censure in regard either to her mother or sister; but she expressed an opinion in the mildest words which she could use, that if anything had happened which had compromised their names since their residence at the Clock House, she, Dorothy, had better go home and join them. The meaning of which was that it would not become her to remain in the house in the Close, if the house in the Close would be disgraced by her presence. Poor Dorothy had taught herself to think that the iniquity of roaring lions spread itself very widely. In the afternoon she made some such proposition to her aunt in ambiguous terms. "Go home!" said Miss Stanbury. "Now?" "If you think it best, Aunt Stanbury." "And put yourself in the middle of all this iniquity and abomination! I don't suppose you want to know the woman?" "No, indeed!" "Or the man?" "Oh, Aunt Stanbury!" "It's my belief that no decent gentleman in Exeter would look at you again if you were to go and live among them at Nuncombe Putney while all this is going on. No, no. Let one of you be saved out of it, at least." Aunt Stanbury had more than once made use of expressions which brought the faintest touch of gentle pink up to her niece's cheeks. We must do Dorothy the justice of saying that she had never dreamed of being looked at by any gentleman, whether decent or indecent. Her life at Nuncombe Putney had been of such a nature, that though she knew that other girls were looked at, and even made love to, and that they got married and had children, no dim vision of such a career for herself had ever presented itself to her eyes. She had known very well that her mother and sister and herself were people apart,--ladies, and yet so extremely poor, that they could only maintain their rank by the most rigid seclusion. To live, and work unseen, was what the world had ordained for her. Then her call to Exeter had come upon her, and she had conceived that she was henceforth to be the humble companion of a very imperious old aunt. Her aunt, indeed, was imperious, but did not seem to require humility in her companion. All the good things that were eaten and drunk were divided between them with the strictest impartiality. Dorothy's cushion and hassock in the church and in the cathedral were the same as her aunt's. Her bed-room was made very comfortable for her. Her aunt never gave her any orders before company, and always spoke of her before the servants as one whom they were to obey and respect. Gradually Dorothy came to understand the meaning of this;--but her aunt would sometimes say things about young men which she did not quite understand. Could it be that her aunt supposed that any young man would come and wish to marry her,--her, Dorothy Stanbury? She herself had not quite so strong an aversion to men in general as that which Priscilla felt, but she had not as yet found that any of those whom she had seen at Exeter were peculiarly agreeable to her. Before she went to bed that night her aunt said a word to her which startled her more than she had ever been startled before. On that evening Miss Stanbury had a few friends to drink tea with her. There were Mr. and Mrs. Crumbie, and Mrs. MacHugh of course, and the Cheritons from Alphington, and the Miss Apjohns from Helion Villa, and old Mr. Powel all the way from Haldon, and two of the Wrights from their house in the Northernhay, and Mr. Gibson;--but the Miss Frenches from Heavitree were not there. "Why don't you have the Miss Frenches, aunt?" Dorothy had asked. "Bother the Miss Frenches! I'm not bound to have them every time. There's Camilla has been and got herself a band-box on the back of her head a great deal bigger than the place inside where her brains ought to be." But the band-box at the back of Camilla French's head was not the sole cause of the omission of the two sisters from the list of Miss Stanbury's visitors on this occasion. The party went off very much as usual. There were two whist tables, for Miss Stanbury could not bear to cut out. At other houses than her own, when there was cutting out, it was quite understood that Miss Stanbury was to be allowed to keep her place. "I'll go away, and sit out there by myself, if you like," she would say. But she was never thus banished; and at her own house she usually contrived that there should be no system of banishment. She would play dummy whist, preferring it to the four-handed game; and, when hard driven, and with a meet opponent, would not even despise double-dummy. It was told of her and of Mrs. MacHugh that they had played double-dummy for a whole evening together; and they who were given to calumny had declared that the candles on that evening had been lighted very early. On the present occasion a great many sixpenny points were scored, and much tea and cake were consumed. Mr. Gibson never played whist,--nor did Dorothy. That young John Wright and Mary Cheriton should do nothing but talk to each other was a thing of course, as they were to be married in a month or two. Then there was Ida Cheriton, who could not very well be left at home; and Mr. Gibson made himself pleasant to Dorothy and Ida Cheriton, instead of making himself pleasant to the two Miss Frenches. Gentlemen in provincial towns quite understand that, from the nature of social circumstances in the provinces, they should always be ready to be pleasant at least to a pair at a time. At a few minutes before twelve they were all gone, and then came the shock. "Dolly, my dear, what do you think of Mr. Gibson?" "Think of him, Aunt Stanbury?" "Yes; think of him;--think of him. I suppose you know how to think?" "He seems to me always to preach very drawling sermons." "Oh, bother his sermons! I don't care anything about his sermons now. He is a very good clergyman, and the Dean thinks very much about him." "I am glad of that, Aunt Stanbury." Then came the shock. "Don't you think it would be a very good thing if you were to become Mrs. Gibson?" It may be presumed that Miss Stanbury had assured herself that she could not make progress with Dorothy by "beating about the bush." There was an inaptitude in her niece to comprehend the advantages of the situations, which made some direct explanation absolutely necessary. Dorothy stood half-smiling, half-crying, when she heard the proposition, her cheeks suffused with that pink colour, and with both her hands extended with surprise. "I've been thinking about it ever since you've been here," said Miss Stanbury. "I think he likes Miss French," said Dorothy, in a whisper. "Which of them? I don't believe he likes them at all. Maybe, if they go on long enough, they may be able to toss up for him. But I don't think it of him. Of course they're after him, but he'll be too wise for them. And he's more of a fool than I take him to be if he don't prefer you to them." Dorothy remained quite silent. To such an address as this it was impossible that she should reply a word. It was incredible to her that any man should prefer herself to either of the young women in question; but she was too much confounded for the expression even of her humility. "At any rate you're wholesome, and pleasant and modest," said Miss Stanbury. Dorothy did not quite like being told that she was wholesome; but, nevertheless, she was thankful to her aunt. "I'll tell you what it is," continued Miss Stanbury; "I hate all mysteries, especially with those I love. I've saved two thousand pounds, which I've put you down for in my will. Now, if you and he can make it up together, I'll give you the money at once. There's no knowing how often an old woman may alter her will; but when you've got a thing, you've got it. Mr. Gibson would know the meaning of a bird in the hand as well as anybody. Now those girls at Heavitree will never have above a few hundreds each, and not that while their mother lives." Dorothy made one little attempt at squeezing her aunt's hand, wishing to thank her aunt for this affectionate generosity; but she had hardly accomplished the squeeze, when she desisted, feeling strangely averse to any acknowledgment of such a boon as that which had been offered to her. "And now, good night, my dear. If I did not think you a very sensible young woman, I should not trust you by saying all this." Then they parted, and Dorothy soon found herself alone in her bedroom. To have a husband of her own, a perfect gentleman too, and a clergyman;--and to go to him with a fortune! She believed that two thousand pounds represented nearly a hundred a year. It was a large fortune in those parts,--according to her understanding of ladies' fortunes. And that she, the humblest of the humble, should be selected for so honourable a position! She had never quite known, quite understood as yet, whether she had made good her footing in her aunt's house in a manner pleasant to her aunt. More than once or twice she had spoken even of going back to her mother, and things had been said which had almost made her think that her aunt had been angry with her. But now, after a month or two of joint residence, her aunt was offering to her--two thousand pounds and a husband! But was it within her aunt's power to offer to her the husband? Mr. Gibson had always been very civil to her. She had spoken more to Mr. Gibson than to any other man in Exeter. But it had never occurred to her for a moment that Mr. Gibson had any special liking for her. Was it probable that he would ever entertain any feeling of that kind for her? It certainly had occurred to her before now that Mr. Gibson was sometimes bored by the Miss Frenches;--but then gentlemen do get bored by ladies. And at last she asked herself another question,--had she any special liking for Mr. Gibson? As far as she understood such matters everything was blank there. Thinking of that other question, she went to sleep. CHAPTER XXIII. COLONEL OSBORNE AND MR. BOZZLE RETURN TO LONDON. Hugh Stanbury went down on the Saturday, by the early express to Exeter, on his road to Lessboro'. He took his ticket through to Lessboro', not purposing to stay at Exeter; but, from the exigencies of the various trains, it was necessary that he should remain for half an hour at the Exeter Station. This took place on the Saturday, and Colonel Osborne's visit to the Clock House had been made on the Friday. Colonel Osborne had returned to Lessboro', had slept again at Mrs. Clegg's house, and returned to London on the Saturday. It so happened that he also was obliged to spend half an hour at the Exeter Station, and that his half-hour, and Hugh Stanbury's half-hour, were one and the same. They met, therefore, as a matter of course, upon the platform. Stanbury was the first to see the other, and he found that he must determine on the spur of the moment what he would say, and what he would do. He had received no direct commission from Trevelyan as to his meeting with Colonel Osborne. Trevelyan had declared that, as to the matter of quarrelling, he meant to retain the privilege of doing that for himself; but Stanbury had quite understood that this was only the vague expression of an angry man. The Colonel had taken a glass of sherry, and had lighted a cigar, and was quite comfortable,--having thrown aside, for a time, that consciousness of the futility of his journey which had perplexed him,--when Stanbury accosted him. "What! Mr. Stanbury,--how do you do? Fine day, isn't it? Are you going up or down?" "I'm going to see my own people at Nuncombe Putney, a village beyond Lessboro'," said Hugh. "Ah;--indeed." Colonel Osborne of course perceived at once that as this man was going to the house at which he had just been visiting, it would be better that he should himself explain what he had done. If he were to allow this mention of Nuncombe Putney to pass without saying that he himself had been there, he would be convicted of at least some purpose of secrecy in what he had been doing. "Very strange," said he; "I was at Nuncombe Putney myself yesterday." "I know you were," said Stanbury. "And how did you know it?" There had been a tone of anger in Stanbury's voice which Colonel Osborne had at once appreciated, and which made him assume a similar tone. As they spoke there was a man standing in a corner close by the bookstall, with his eye upon them, and that man was Bozzle, the ex-policeman,--who was doing his duty with sedulous activity by seeing "the Colonel" back to London. Now Bozzle did not know Hugh Stanbury, and was angry with himself that he should be so ignorant. It is the pride of a detective ex-policeman to know everybody that comes in his way. "Well, I had been so informed. My friend Trevelyan knew that you were there,--or that you were going there." "I don't care who knew that I was going there," said the Colonel. "I won't pretend to understand how that may be, Colonel Osborne; but I think you must be aware, after what took place in Curzon Street, that it would have been better that you should not have attempted to see Mrs. Trevelyan. Whether you have seen her I do not know." "What business is it of yours, Mr. Stanbury, whether I have seen that lady or not?" "Unhappily for me, her husband has made it my business." "Very unhappily for you, I should say." "And the lady is staying at my mother's house." "I presume the lady is not a prisoner in your mother's house, and that your mother's hospitality is not so restricted but that her guest may see an old friend under her roof." This Colonel Osborne said with an assumed look of almost righteous indignation, which was not at all lost upon Bozzle. They had returned back towards the bookstall, and Bozzle, with his eyes fixed on a copy of the "D. R." which he had just bought, was straining his ears to the utmost to catch what was being said. "You best know whether you have seen her or not." "I have seen her." "Then I shall take leave to tell you, Colonel Osborne, that you have acted in a most unfriendly way, and have done that which must tend to keep an affectionate husband apart from his wife." "Sir, I don't at all understand this kind of thing addressed to me. The father of the lady you are speaking of has been my most intimate friend for thirty years." After all, the Colonel was a mean man when he could take pride in his youth, and defend himself on the score of his age, in one and the same proceeding. "I have nothing further to say," replied Stanbury. "You have said too much already, Mr. Stanbury." "I think not, Colonel Osborne. You have, I fear, done an incredible deal of mischief by going to Nuncombe Putney; and, after all that you have heard on the subject, you must have known that it would be mischievous. I cannot understand how you can | expected | How many times the word 'expected' appears in the text? | 1 |
very great,--so great that in its first flush she could not restrain herself from exhibiting it to Dorothy. "Well,--well,--what do you think, Dolly?" "About what, aunt? I don't know who the letter is from." "Nobody writes to me now so constant as your sister Priscilla. The letter is from Priscilla. Colonel Osborne has been at the Clock House, after all. I knew that he would be there. I knew it! I knew it!" Dorothy, when she heard this, was dumbfounded. She had rested her defence of her mother and sister on the impossibility of any such visit being admitted. According to her lights the coming of Colonel Osborne, after all that had been said, would be like the coming of Lucifer himself. The Colonel was, to her imagination, a horrible roaring lion. She had no idea that the erratic manoeuvres of such a beast might be milder and more innocent than the wooing of any turtle-dove. She would have asked whether the roaring lion had gone away again, and, if so, whether he had taken his prey with him, were it not that she was too much frightened at the moment to ask any question. That her mother and sister should have been wilfully concerned in such iniquity was quite incredible to her, but yet she did not know how to defend them. "But are you quite sure of it, Aunt Stanbury? May there not be another mistake?" "No mistake this time, I think, my dear. Any way, Priscilla says that he is there." Now in this there was a mistake. Priscilla had said nothing of the kind. "You don't mean that he is staying at the Clock House, Aunt Stanbury?" "I don't know where he is now. I'm not his keeper. And, I'm glad to say, I'm not the lady's keeper either. Ah, me! It's a bad business. You can't touch pitch and not be defiled, my dear. If your mother wanted the Clock House, I would sooner have taken it for her myself than that all this should have happened,--for the family's sake." But Miss Stanbury, when she was alone, and when she had read her niece's three letters again and again, began to understand something of Priscilla's honesty, and began also to perceive that there might have been a great difficulty respecting the Colonel, for which neither her niece nor her sister-in-law could fairly be held to be responsible. It was perhaps the plainest characteristic of all the Stanburys that they were never wilfully dishonest. Ignorant, prejudiced, and passionate they might be. In her anger Miss Stanbury, of Exeter, could be almost malicious; and her niece at Nuncombe Putney was very like her aunt. Each could say most cruel things, most unjust things, when actuated by a mistaken consciousness of perfect right on her own side. But neither of them could lie,--even by silence. Let an error be brought home to either of them,--so as to be acknowledged at home,--and the error would be assuredly confessed aloud. And, indeed, with differences in the shades, Hugh and Dorothy were of the same nature. They were possessed of sweeter tempers than their aunt and sister, but they were filled with the same eager readiness to believe themselves to be right,--and to own themselves to others to be wrong, when they had been constrained to make such confession to themselves. The chances of life, and something probably of inner nature, had made Dorothy mild and obedient; whereas, in regard to Hugh, the circumstances of his life and disposition had made him obstinate and self-reliant. But in all was to be found the same belief in self,--which amounted almost to conceit,--the same warmth of affection, and the same love of justice. When Miss Stanbury had again perused the correspondence, and had come to see, dimly, how things had gone at Nuncombe Putney,--when the conviction came upon her mind that Priscilla had entertained a horror as to the coming of this Colonel equal to that which she herself had felt,--when her imagination painted to her all that her niece had suffered, her heart was softened somewhat. She had declared to Dorothy that pitch, if touched, would certainly defile; and she had, at first, intended to send the same opinion, couched in very forcible words, to her correspondents at the Clock House. They should not continue to go astray for want of being told that they were going astray. It must be acknowledged, too, that there was a certain amount of ignoble wrath in the bosom of Miss Stanbury because her sister-in-law had taken the Clock House. She had never been told, and had not even condescended to ask Dorothy, whether the house was taken and paid for by her nephew on behalf of his mother, or whether it was paid for by Mr. Trevelyan on behalf of his wife. In the latter case, Mrs. Stanbury would, she thought, be little more than an upper servant, or keeper,--as she expressed it to herself. Such an arrangement appeared to her to be quite disgraceful in a Stanbury; but yet she believed that such must be the existing arrangement, as she could not bring herself to conceive that Hugh Stanbury could keep such an establishment over his mother's head out of money earned by writing for a penny newspaper. There would be a triumph of democracy in this which would vanquish her altogether. She had, therefore, been anxious enough to trample on Priscilla and upon all the affairs of the Clock House; but yet she had been unable to ignore the nobility of Priscilla's truth, and having acknowledged it to herself she found herself compelled to acknowledge it aloud. She sat down to think in silence, and it was not till she had fortified herself by her first draught of beer, and till she had finished her first portion of bread and cheese, that she spoke. "I have written to your sister herself, this time," she said. "I don't know that I ever wrote a line to her before in my life." "Poor Priscilla!" Dorothy did not mean to be severe on her aunt, either in regard to the letters which had not been written, or to the one letter which now had been written. But Dorothy pitied her sister, whom she felt to be in trouble. "Well; I don't know about her being so poor. Priscilla, I'll be bound, thinks as well of herself as any of us do." "She'd cut her fingers off before she'd mean to do wrong," said Dorothy. "But what does that come to? What's the good of that? It isn't meaning to do right that will save us. For aught I know, the Radicals may mean to do right. Mr. Beales means to do right--perhaps." "But, aunt,--if everybody did the best they could?" "Tush, my dear! you are getting beyond your depth. There are such things still, thank God! as spiritual pastors and masters. Entrust yourself to them. Do what they think right." Now if aught were known in Exeter of Miss Stanbury, this was known,--that if any clergyman volunteered to give to her, unasked and uninvited, counsel, either ghostly or bodily, that clergyman would be sent from her presence with a wigging which he would not soon forget. The thing had been tried more than once, and the wigging had been complete. There was no more attentive listener in church than Miss Stanbury; and she would, now and again, appeal to a clergyman on some knotty point. But for the ordinary authority of spiritual pastors and masters she shewed more of abstract reverence than of practical obedience. "I'm sure Priscilla does the best she can," said Dorothy, going back to the old subject. "Ah,--well,--yes. What I want to say about Priscilla is this. It is a thousand pities she is so obstinate, so pig-headed, so certain that she can manage everything for herself better than anybody else can for her." Miss Stanbury was striving to say something good of her niece, but found the task to be difficult and distasteful to her. "She has managed for mamma ever so many years; and since she took it we have hardly ever been in debt," said Dorothy. "She'll do all that, I don't doubt. I don't suppose she cares much for ribbons and false hair for herself." "Who? Priscilla! The idea of Priscilla with false hair!" "I dare say not;--I dare say not. I do not think she'd spend her mother's money on things of that kind." "Aunt Stanbury, you don't know her." "Ah; very well. Perhaps I don't. But, come, my dear, you are very hard upon me, and very anxious to take your sister's part. And what is it all about? I've just written to her as civil a letter as one woman ever wrote to another. And if I had chosen, I could have,--could have,--h--m--m." Miss Stanbury, as she hesitated for words in which to complete her sentence, revelled in the strength of the vituperation which she could have poured upon her niece's head, had she chosen to write her last letter about Colonel Osborne in her severe strain. "If you have written kindly to her, I am so much obliged to you," said Dorothy. "The truth is, Priscilla has meant to be right. Meaning won't go for much when the account is taken, unless the meaning comes from a proper source. But the poor girl has done as well as she has known how. I believe it is Hugh's fault more than anybody else's." This accusation was not pleasant to Dorothy, but she was too intent just now on Priscilla's case to defend her brother. "That man never ought to have been there; and that woman never ought to have been there. There cannot be a doubt about that. If Priscilla were sitting there opposite to me, she would own as much. I am sure she would." Miss Stanbury was quite right if she meant to assert that Priscilla had owned as much to herself. "And because I think so, I am willing to forgive her part in the matter. To me, personally, she has always been rude,--most uncourteous,--and,--and,--and unlike a younger woman to an older one, and an aunt, and all that. I suppose it is because she hates me." "Oh, no, Aunt Stanbury!" "My dear, I suppose it is. Why else should she treat me in such a way? But I do believe of her that she would rather eat an honest, dry crust, than dishonest cake and ale." "She would rather starve than pick up a crumb that was dishonest," said Dorothy, fairly bursting out into tears. "I believe it. I do believe it. There; what more can I say? Clock House, indeed! What matter what house you live in, so that you can pay the rent of it honestly?" "But the rent is paid--honestly," said Dorothy, amidst her sobs. "It's paid, I don't doubt. I dare say the woman's husband and your brother see to that among them. Oh, that my boy, Hugh, as he used to be, should have brought us all to this! But there's no knowing what they won't do among them. Reform, indeed! Murder, sacrilege, adultery, treason, atheism;--that's what Reform means; besides every kind of nastiness under the sun." In which latter category Miss Stanbury intended especially to include bad printer's ink, and paper made of straw. The reader may as well see the letter which was as civil a letter as ever one woman wrote to another, so that the collection of the Stanbury correspondence may be made perfect. The Close, August 6, 186--. MY DEAR NIECE, Your letter has not astonished me nearly as much as you expected it would. I am an older woman than you, and, though you will not believe it, I have seen more of the world. I knew that the gentleman would come after the lady. Such gentlemen always do go after their ladies. As for yourself, I can see all that you have done, and pretty nearly hear all that you have said, as plain as a pike-staff. I do you the credit of believing that the plan is none of your making. I know who made the plan, and a very bad plan it is. As to my former letters and the other man, I understand all about it. You were very angry that I should accuse you of having this man at the house; and you were right to be angry. I respect you for having been angry. But what does all that say as to his coming,--now that he has come? If you will consent to take an old woman's advice, get rid of the whole boiling of them. I say it in firm love and friendship, for I am,-- Your affectionate aunt, JEMIMA STANBURY. The special vaunted courtesy of this letter consisted, no doubt, in the expression of respect which it contained, and in that declaration of affection with which it terminated. The epithet was one which Miss Stanbury would by no means use promiscuously in writing to her nearest relatives. She had not intended to use it when she commenced her letter to Priscilla. But the respect of which she had spoken had glowed, and had warmed itself into something of temporary love; and feeling at the moment that she was an affectionate aunt, Miss Stanbury had so put herself down in her letter. Having done such a deed she felt that Dorothy, though Dorothy knew nothing about it, ought in her gratitude to listen patiently to anything that she might now choose to say against Priscilla. But Dorothy was in truth very miserable, and in her misery wrote a long letter that afternoon to her mother,--which, however, it will not be necessary to place entire among the Stanbury records,--begging that she might be informed as to the true circumstances of the case. She did not say a word of censure in regard either to her mother or sister; but she expressed an opinion in the mildest words which she could use, that if anything had happened which had compromised their names since their residence at the Clock House, she, Dorothy, had better go home and join them. The meaning of which was that it would not become her to remain in the house in the Close, if the house in the Close would be disgraced by her presence. Poor Dorothy had taught herself to think that the iniquity of roaring lions spread itself very widely. In the afternoon she made some such proposition to her aunt in ambiguous terms. "Go home!" said Miss Stanbury. "Now?" "If you think it best, Aunt Stanbury." "And put yourself in the middle of all this iniquity and abomination! I don't suppose you want to know the woman?" "No, indeed!" "Or the man?" "Oh, Aunt Stanbury!" "It's my belief that no decent gentleman in Exeter would look at you again if you were to go and live among them at Nuncombe Putney while all this is going on. No, no. Let one of you be saved out of it, at least." Aunt Stanbury had more than once made use of expressions which brought the faintest touch of gentle pink up to her niece's cheeks. We must do Dorothy the justice of saying that she had never dreamed of being looked at by any gentleman, whether decent or indecent. Her life at Nuncombe Putney had been of such a nature, that though she knew that other girls were looked at, and even made love to, and that they got married and had children, no dim vision of such a career for herself had ever presented itself to her eyes. She had known very well that her mother and sister and herself were people apart,--ladies, and yet so extremely poor, that they could only maintain their rank by the most rigid seclusion. To live, and work unseen, was what the world had ordained for her. Then her call to Exeter had come upon her, and she had conceived that she was henceforth to be the humble companion of a very imperious old aunt. Her aunt, indeed, was imperious, but did not seem to require humility in her companion. All the good things that were eaten and drunk were divided between them with the strictest impartiality. Dorothy's cushion and hassock in the church and in the cathedral were the same as her aunt's. Her bed-room was made very comfortable for her. Her aunt never gave her any orders before company, and always spoke of her before the servants as one whom they were to obey and respect. Gradually Dorothy came to understand the meaning of this;--but her aunt would sometimes say things about young men which she did not quite understand. Could it be that her aunt supposed that any young man would come and wish to marry her,--her, Dorothy Stanbury? She herself had not quite so strong an aversion to men in general as that which Priscilla felt, but she had not as yet found that any of those whom she had seen at Exeter were peculiarly agreeable to her. Before she went to bed that night her aunt said a word to her which startled her more than she had ever been startled before. On that evening Miss Stanbury had a few friends to drink tea with her. There were Mr. and Mrs. Crumbie, and Mrs. MacHugh of course, and the Cheritons from Alphington, and the Miss Apjohns from Helion Villa, and old Mr. Powel all the way from Haldon, and two of the Wrights from their house in the Northernhay, and Mr. Gibson;--but the Miss Frenches from Heavitree were not there. "Why don't you have the Miss Frenches, aunt?" Dorothy had asked. "Bother the Miss Frenches! I'm not bound to have them every time. There's Camilla has been and got herself a band-box on the back of her head a great deal bigger than the place inside where her brains ought to be." But the band-box at the back of Camilla French's head was not the sole cause of the omission of the two sisters from the list of Miss Stanbury's visitors on this occasion. The party went off very much as usual. There were two whist tables, for Miss Stanbury could not bear to cut out. At other houses than her own, when there was cutting out, it was quite understood that Miss Stanbury was to be allowed to keep her place. "I'll go away, and sit out there by myself, if you like," she would say. But she was never thus banished; and at her own house she usually contrived that there should be no system of banishment. She would play dummy whist, preferring it to the four-handed game; and, when hard driven, and with a meet opponent, would not even despise double-dummy. It was told of her and of Mrs. MacHugh that they had played double-dummy for a whole evening together; and they who were given to calumny had declared that the candles on that evening had been lighted very early. On the present occasion a great many sixpenny points were scored, and much tea and cake were consumed. Mr. Gibson never played whist,--nor did Dorothy. That young John Wright and Mary Cheriton should do nothing but talk to each other was a thing of course, as they were to be married in a month or two. Then there was Ida Cheriton, who could not very well be left at home; and Mr. Gibson made himself pleasant to Dorothy and Ida Cheriton, instead of making himself pleasant to the two Miss Frenches. Gentlemen in provincial towns quite understand that, from the nature of social circumstances in the provinces, they should always be ready to be pleasant at least to a pair at a time. At a few minutes before twelve they were all gone, and then came the shock. "Dolly, my dear, what do you think of Mr. Gibson?" "Think of him, Aunt Stanbury?" "Yes; think of him;--think of him. I suppose you know how to think?" "He seems to me always to preach very drawling sermons." "Oh, bother his sermons! I don't care anything about his sermons now. He is a very good clergyman, and the Dean thinks very much about him." "I am glad of that, Aunt Stanbury." Then came the shock. "Don't you think it would be a very good thing if you were to become Mrs. Gibson?" It may be presumed that Miss Stanbury had assured herself that she could not make progress with Dorothy by "beating about the bush." There was an inaptitude in her niece to comprehend the advantages of the situations, which made some direct explanation absolutely necessary. Dorothy stood half-smiling, half-crying, when she heard the proposition, her cheeks suffused with that pink colour, and with both her hands extended with surprise. "I've been thinking about it ever since you've been here," said Miss Stanbury. "I think he likes Miss French," said Dorothy, in a whisper. "Which of them? I don't believe he likes them at all. Maybe, if they go on long enough, they may be able to toss up for him. But I don't think it of him. Of course they're after him, but he'll be too wise for them. And he's more of a fool than I take him to be if he don't prefer you to them." Dorothy remained quite silent. To such an address as this it was impossible that she should reply a word. It was incredible to her that any man should prefer herself to either of the young women in question; but she was too much confounded for the expression even of her humility. "At any rate you're wholesome, and pleasant and modest," said Miss Stanbury. Dorothy did not quite like being told that she was wholesome; but, nevertheless, she was thankful to her aunt. "I'll tell you what it is," continued Miss Stanbury; "I hate all mysteries, especially with those I love. I've saved two thousand pounds, which I've put you down for in my will. Now, if you and he can make it up together, I'll give you the money at once. There's no knowing how often an old woman may alter her will; but when you've got a thing, you've got it. Mr. Gibson would know the meaning of a bird in the hand as well as anybody. Now those girls at Heavitree will never have above a few hundreds each, and not that while their mother lives." Dorothy made one little attempt at squeezing her aunt's hand, wishing to thank her aunt for this affectionate generosity; but she had hardly accomplished the squeeze, when she desisted, feeling strangely averse to any acknowledgment of such a boon as that which had been offered to her. "And now, good night, my dear. If I did not think you a very sensible young woman, I should not trust you by saying all this." Then they parted, and Dorothy soon found herself alone in her bedroom. To have a husband of her own, a perfect gentleman too, and a clergyman;--and to go to him with a fortune! She believed that two thousand pounds represented nearly a hundred a year. It was a large fortune in those parts,--according to her understanding of ladies' fortunes. And that she, the humblest of the humble, should be selected for so honourable a position! She had never quite known, quite understood as yet, whether she had made good her footing in her aunt's house in a manner pleasant to her aunt. More than once or twice she had spoken even of going back to her mother, and things had been said which had almost made her think that her aunt had been angry with her. But now, after a month or two of joint residence, her aunt was offering to her--two thousand pounds and a husband! But was it within her aunt's power to offer to her the husband? Mr. Gibson had always been very civil to her. She had spoken more to Mr. Gibson than to any other man in Exeter. But it had never occurred to her for a moment that Mr. Gibson had any special liking for her. Was it probable that he would ever entertain any feeling of that kind for her? It certainly had occurred to her before now that Mr. Gibson was sometimes bored by the Miss Frenches;--but then gentlemen do get bored by ladies. And at last she asked herself another question,--had she any special liking for Mr. Gibson? As far as she understood such matters everything was blank there. Thinking of that other question, she went to sleep. CHAPTER XXIII. COLONEL OSBORNE AND MR. BOZZLE RETURN TO LONDON. Hugh Stanbury went down on the Saturday, by the early express to Exeter, on his road to Lessboro'. He took his ticket through to Lessboro', not purposing to stay at Exeter; but, from the exigencies of the various trains, it was necessary that he should remain for half an hour at the Exeter Station. This took place on the Saturday, and Colonel Osborne's visit to the Clock House had been made on the Friday. Colonel Osborne had returned to Lessboro', had slept again at Mrs. Clegg's house, and returned to London on the Saturday. It so happened that he also was obliged to spend half an hour at the Exeter Station, and that his half-hour, and Hugh Stanbury's half-hour, were one and the same. They met, therefore, as a matter of course, upon the platform. Stanbury was the first to see the other, and he found that he must determine on the spur of the moment what he would say, and what he would do. He had received no direct commission from Trevelyan as to his meeting with Colonel Osborne. Trevelyan had declared that, as to the matter of quarrelling, he meant to retain the privilege of doing that for himself; but Stanbury had quite understood that this was only the vague expression of an angry man. The Colonel had taken a glass of sherry, and had lighted a cigar, and was quite comfortable,--having thrown aside, for a time, that consciousness of the futility of his journey which had perplexed him,--when Stanbury accosted him. "What! Mr. Stanbury,--how do you do? Fine day, isn't it? Are you going up or down?" "I'm going to see my own people at Nuncombe Putney, a village beyond Lessboro'," said Hugh. "Ah;--indeed." Colonel Osborne of course perceived at once that as this man was going to the house at which he had just been visiting, it would be better that he should himself explain what he had done. If he were to allow this mention of Nuncombe Putney to pass without saying that he himself had been there, he would be convicted of at least some purpose of secrecy in what he had been doing. "Very strange," said he; "I was at Nuncombe Putney myself yesterday." "I know you were," said Stanbury. "And how did you know it?" There had been a tone of anger in Stanbury's voice which Colonel Osborne had at once appreciated, and which made him assume a similar tone. As they spoke there was a man standing in a corner close by the bookstall, with his eye upon them, and that man was Bozzle, the ex-policeman,--who was doing his duty with sedulous activity by seeing "the Colonel" back to London. Now Bozzle did not know Hugh Stanbury, and was angry with himself that he should be so ignorant. It is the pride of a detective ex-policeman to know everybody that comes in his way. "Well, I had been so informed. My friend Trevelyan knew that you were there,--or that you were going there." "I don't care who knew that I was going there," said the Colonel. "I won't pretend to understand how that may be, Colonel Osborne; but I think you must be aware, after what took place in Curzon Street, that it would have been better that you should not have attempted to see Mrs. Trevelyan. Whether you have seen her I do not know." "What business is it of yours, Mr. Stanbury, whether I have seen that lady or not?" "Unhappily for me, her husband has made it my business." "Very unhappily for you, I should say." "And the lady is staying at my mother's house." "I presume the lady is not a prisoner in your mother's house, and that your mother's hospitality is not so restricted but that her guest may see an old friend under her roof." This Colonel Osborne said with an assumed look of almost righteous indignation, which was not at all lost upon Bozzle. They had returned back towards the bookstall, and Bozzle, with his eyes fixed on a copy of the "D. R." which he had just bought, was straining his ears to the utmost to catch what was being said. "You best know whether you have seen her or not." "I have seen her." "Then I shall take leave to tell you, Colonel Osborne, that you have acted in a most unfriendly way, and have done that which must tend to keep an affectionate husband apart from his wife." "Sir, I don't at all understand this kind of thing addressed to me. The father of the lady you are speaking of has been my most intimate friend for thirty years." After all, the Colonel was a mean man when he could take pride in his youth, and defend himself on the score of his age, in one and the same proceeding. "I have nothing further to say," replied Stanbury. "You have said too much already, Mr. Stanbury." "I think not, Colonel Osborne. You have, I fear, done an incredible deal of mischief by going to Nuncombe Putney; and, after all that you have heard on the subject, you must have known that it would be mischievous. I cannot understand how you can | pitied | How many times the word 'pitied' appears in the text? | 1 |
very great,--so great that in its first flush she could not restrain herself from exhibiting it to Dorothy. "Well,--well,--what do you think, Dolly?" "About what, aunt? I don't know who the letter is from." "Nobody writes to me now so constant as your sister Priscilla. The letter is from Priscilla. Colonel Osborne has been at the Clock House, after all. I knew that he would be there. I knew it! I knew it!" Dorothy, when she heard this, was dumbfounded. She had rested her defence of her mother and sister on the impossibility of any such visit being admitted. According to her lights the coming of Colonel Osborne, after all that had been said, would be like the coming of Lucifer himself. The Colonel was, to her imagination, a horrible roaring lion. She had no idea that the erratic manoeuvres of such a beast might be milder and more innocent than the wooing of any turtle-dove. She would have asked whether the roaring lion had gone away again, and, if so, whether he had taken his prey with him, were it not that she was too much frightened at the moment to ask any question. That her mother and sister should have been wilfully concerned in such iniquity was quite incredible to her, but yet she did not know how to defend them. "But are you quite sure of it, Aunt Stanbury? May there not be another mistake?" "No mistake this time, I think, my dear. Any way, Priscilla says that he is there." Now in this there was a mistake. Priscilla had said nothing of the kind. "You don't mean that he is staying at the Clock House, Aunt Stanbury?" "I don't know where he is now. I'm not his keeper. And, I'm glad to say, I'm not the lady's keeper either. Ah, me! It's a bad business. You can't touch pitch and not be defiled, my dear. If your mother wanted the Clock House, I would sooner have taken it for her myself than that all this should have happened,--for the family's sake." But Miss Stanbury, when she was alone, and when she had read her niece's three letters again and again, began to understand something of Priscilla's honesty, and began also to perceive that there might have been a great difficulty respecting the Colonel, for which neither her niece nor her sister-in-law could fairly be held to be responsible. It was perhaps the plainest characteristic of all the Stanburys that they were never wilfully dishonest. Ignorant, prejudiced, and passionate they might be. In her anger Miss Stanbury, of Exeter, could be almost malicious; and her niece at Nuncombe Putney was very like her aunt. Each could say most cruel things, most unjust things, when actuated by a mistaken consciousness of perfect right on her own side. But neither of them could lie,--even by silence. Let an error be brought home to either of them,--so as to be acknowledged at home,--and the error would be assuredly confessed aloud. And, indeed, with differences in the shades, Hugh and Dorothy were of the same nature. They were possessed of sweeter tempers than their aunt and sister, but they were filled with the same eager readiness to believe themselves to be right,--and to own themselves to others to be wrong, when they had been constrained to make such confession to themselves. The chances of life, and something probably of inner nature, had made Dorothy mild and obedient; whereas, in regard to Hugh, the circumstances of his life and disposition had made him obstinate and self-reliant. But in all was to be found the same belief in self,--which amounted almost to conceit,--the same warmth of affection, and the same love of justice. When Miss Stanbury had again perused the correspondence, and had come to see, dimly, how things had gone at Nuncombe Putney,--when the conviction came upon her mind that Priscilla had entertained a horror as to the coming of this Colonel equal to that which she herself had felt,--when her imagination painted to her all that her niece had suffered, her heart was softened somewhat. She had declared to Dorothy that pitch, if touched, would certainly defile; and she had, at first, intended to send the same opinion, couched in very forcible words, to her correspondents at the Clock House. They should not continue to go astray for want of being told that they were going astray. It must be acknowledged, too, that there was a certain amount of ignoble wrath in the bosom of Miss Stanbury because her sister-in-law had taken the Clock House. She had never been told, and had not even condescended to ask Dorothy, whether the house was taken and paid for by her nephew on behalf of his mother, or whether it was paid for by Mr. Trevelyan on behalf of his wife. In the latter case, Mrs. Stanbury would, she thought, be little more than an upper servant, or keeper,--as she expressed it to herself. Such an arrangement appeared to her to be quite disgraceful in a Stanbury; but yet she believed that such must be the existing arrangement, as she could not bring herself to conceive that Hugh Stanbury could keep such an establishment over his mother's head out of money earned by writing for a penny newspaper. There would be a triumph of democracy in this which would vanquish her altogether. She had, therefore, been anxious enough to trample on Priscilla and upon all the affairs of the Clock House; but yet she had been unable to ignore the nobility of Priscilla's truth, and having acknowledged it to herself she found herself compelled to acknowledge it aloud. She sat down to think in silence, and it was not till she had fortified herself by her first draught of beer, and till she had finished her first portion of bread and cheese, that she spoke. "I have written to your sister herself, this time," she said. "I don't know that I ever wrote a line to her before in my life." "Poor Priscilla!" Dorothy did not mean to be severe on her aunt, either in regard to the letters which had not been written, or to the one letter which now had been written. But Dorothy pitied her sister, whom she felt to be in trouble. "Well; I don't know about her being so poor. Priscilla, I'll be bound, thinks as well of herself as any of us do." "She'd cut her fingers off before she'd mean to do wrong," said Dorothy. "But what does that come to? What's the good of that? It isn't meaning to do right that will save us. For aught I know, the Radicals may mean to do right. Mr. Beales means to do right--perhaps." "But, aunt,--if everybody did the best they could?" "Tush, my dear! you are getting beyond your depth. There are such things still, thank God! as spiritual pastors and masters. Entrust yourself to them. Do what they think right." Now if aught were known in Exeter of Miss Stanbury, this was known,--that if any clergyman volunteered to give to her, unasked and uninvited, counsel, either ghostly or bodily, that clergyman would be sent from her presence with a wigging which he would not soon forget. The thing had been tried more than once, and the wigging had been complete. There was no more attentive listener in church than Miss Stanbury; and she would, now and again, appeal to a clergyman on some knotty point. But for the ordinary authority of spiritual pastors and masters she shewed more of abstract reverence than of practical obedience. "I'm sure Priscilla does the best she can," said Dorothy, going back to the old subject. "Ah,--well,--yes. What I want to say about Priscilla is this. It is a thousand pities she is so obstinate, so pig-headed, so certain that she can manage everything for herself better than anybody else can for her." Miss Stanbury was striving to say something good of her niece, but found the task to be difficult and distasteful to her. "She has managed for mamma ever so many years; and since she took it we have hardly ever been in debt," said Dorothy. "She'll do all that, I don't doubt. I don't suppose she cares much for ribbons and false hair for herself." "Who? Priscilla! The idea of Priscilla with false hair!" "I dare say not;--I dare say not. I do not think she'd spend her mother's money on things of that kind." "Aunt Stanbury, you don't know her." "Ah; very well. Perhaps I don't. But, come, my dear, you are very hard upon me, and very anxious to take your sister's part. And what is it all about? I've just written to her as civil a letter as one woman ever wrote to another. And if I had chosen, I could have,--could have,--h--m--m." Miss Stanbury, as she hesitated for words in which to complete her sentence, revelled in the strength of the vituperation which she could have poured upon her niece's head, had she chosen to write her last letter about Colonel Osborne in her severe strain. "If you have written kindly to her, I am so much obliged to you," said Dorothy. "The truth is, Priscilla has meant to be right. Meaning won't go for much when the account is taken, unless the meaning comes from a proper source. But the poor girl has done as well as she has known how. I believe it is Hugh's fault more than anybody else's." This accusation was not pleasant to Dorothy, but she was too intent just now on Priscilla's case to defend her brother. "That man never ought to have been there; and that woman never ought to have been there. There cannot be a doubt about that. If Priscilla were sitting there opposite to me, she would own as much. I am sure she would." Miss Stanbury was quite right if she meant to assert that Priscilla had owned as much to herself. "And because I think so, I am willing to forgive her part in the matter. To me, personally, she has always been rude,--most uncourteous,--and,--and,--and unlike a younger woman to an older one, and an aunt, and all that. I suppose it is because she hates me." "Oh, no, Aunt Stanbury!" "My dear, I suppose it is. Why else should she treat me in such a way? But I do believe of her that she would rather eat an honest, dry crust, than dishonest cake and ale." "She would rather starve than pick up a crumb that was dishonest," said Dorothy, fairly bursting out into tears. "I believe it. I do believe it. There; what more can I say? Clock House, indeed! What matter what house you live in, so that you can pay the rent of it honestly?" "But the rent is paid--honestly," said Dorothy, amidst her sobs. "It's paid, I don't doubt. I dare say the woman's husband and your brother see to that among them. Oh, that my boy, Hugh, as he used to be, should have brought us all to this! But there's no knowing what they won't do among them. Reform, indeed! Murder, sacrilege, adultery, treason, atheism;--that's what Reform means; besides every kind of nastiness under the sun." In which latter category Miss Stanbury intended especially to include bad printer's ink, and paper made of straw. The reader may as well see the letter which was as civil a letter as ever one woman wrote to another, so that the collection of the Stanbury correspondence may be made perfect. The Close, August 6, 186--. MY DEAR NIECE, Your letter has not astonished me nearly as much as you expected it would. I am an older woman than you, and, though you will not believe it, I have seen more of the world. I knew that the gentleman would come after the lady. Such gentlemen always do go after their ladies. As for yourself, I can see all that you have done, and pretty nearly hear all that you have said, as plain as a pike-staff. I do you the credit of believing that the plan is none of your making. I know who made the plan, and a very bad plan it is. As to my former letters and the other man, I understand all about it. You were very angry that I should accuse you of having this man at the house; and you were right to be angry. I respect you for having been angry. But what does all that say as to his coming,--now that he has come? If you will consent to take an old woman's advice, get rid of the whole boiling of them. I say it in firm love and friendship, for I am,-- Your affectionate aunt, JEMIMA STANBURY. The special vaunted courtesy of this letter consisted, no doubt, in the expression of respect which it contained, and in that declaration of affection with which it terminated. The epithet was one which Miss Stanbury would by no means use promiscuously in writing to her nearest relatives. She had not intended to use it when she commenced her letter to Priscilla. But the respect of which she had spoken had glowed, and had warmed itself into something of temporary love; and feeling at the moment that she was an affectionate aunt, Miss Stanbury had so put herself down in her letter. Having done such a deed she felt that Dorothy, though Dorothy knew nothing about it, ought in her gratitude to listen patiently to anything that she might now choose to say against Priscilla. But Dorothy was in truth very miserable, and in her misery wrote a long letter that afternoon to her mother,--which, however, it will not be necessary to place entire among the Stanbury records,--begging that she might be informed as to the true circumstances of the case. She did not say a word of censure in regard either to her mother or sister; but she expressed an opinion in the mildest words which she could use, that if anything had happened which had compromised their names since their residence at the Clock House, she, Dorothy, had better go home and join them. The meaning of which was that it would not become her to remain in the house in the Close, if the house in the Close would be disgraced by her presence. Poor Dorothy had taught herself to think that the iniquity of roaring lions spread itself very widely. In the afternoon she made some such proposition to her aunt in ambiguous terms. "Go home!" said Miss Stanbury. "Now?" "If you think it best, Aunt Stanbury." "And put yourself in the middle of all this iniquity and abomination! I don't suppose you want to know the woman?" "No, indeed!" "Or the man?" "Oh, Aunt Stanbury!" "It's my belief that no decent gentleman in Exeter would look at you again if you were to go and live among them at Nuncombe Putney while all this is going on. No, no. Let one of you be saved out of it, at least." Aunt Stanbury had more than once made use of expressions which brought the faintest touch of gentle pink up to her niece's cheeks. We must do Dorothy the justice of saying that she had never dreamed of being looked at by any gentleman, whether decent or indecent. Her life at Nuncombe Putney had been of such a nature, that though she knew that other girls were looked at, and even made love to, and that they got married and had children, no dim vision of such a career for herself had ever presented itself to her eyes. She had known very well that her mother and sister and herself were people apart,--ladies, and yet so extremely poor, that they could only maintain their rank by the most rigid seclusion. To live, and work unseen, was what the world had ordained for her. Then her call to Exeter had come upon her, and she had conceived that she was henceforth to be the humble companion of a very imperious old aunt. Her aunt, indeed, was imperious, but did not seem to require humility in her companion. All the good things that were eaten and drunk were divided between them with the strictest impartiality. Dorothy's cushion and hassock in the church and in the cathedral were the same as her aunt's. Her bed-room was made very comfortable for her. Her aunt never gave her any orders before company, and always spoke of her before the servants as one whom they were to obey and respect. Gradually Dorothy came to understand the meaning of this;--but her aunt would sometimes say things about young men which she did not quite understand. Could it be that her aunt supposed that any young man would come and wish to marry her,--her, Dorothy Stanbury? She herself had not quite so strong an aversion to men in general as that which Priscilla felt, but she had not as yet found that any of those whom she had seen at Exeter were peculiarly agreeable to her. Before she went to bed that night her aunt said a word to her which startled her more than she had ever been startled before. On that evening Miss Stanbury had a few friends to drink tea with her. There were Mr. and Mrs. Crumbie, and Mrs. MacHugh of course, and the Cheritons from Alphington, and the Miss Apjohns from Helion Villa, and old Mr. Powel all the way from Haldon, and two of the Wrights from their house in the Northernhay, and Mr. Gibson;--but the Miss Frenches from Heavitree were not there. "Why don't you have the Miss Frenches, aunt?" Dorothy had asked. "Bother the Miss Frenches! I'm not bound to have them every time. There's Camilla has been and got herself a band-box on the back of her head a great deal bigger than the place inside where her brains ought to be." But the band-box at the back of Camilla French's head was not the sole cause of the omission of the two sisters from the list of Miss Stanbury's visitors on this occasion. The party went off very much as usual. There were two whist tables, for Miss Stanbury could not bear to cut out. At other houses than her own, when there was cutting out, it was quite understood that Miss Stanbury was to be allowed to keep her place. "I'll go away, and sit out there by myself, if you like," she would say. But she was never thus banished; and at her own house she usually contrived that there should be no system of banishment. She would play dummy whist, preferring it to the four-handed game; and, when hard driven, and with a meet opponent, would not even despise double-dummy. It was told of her and of Mrs. MacHugh that they had played double-dummy for a whole evening together; and they who were given to calumny had declared that the candles on that evening had been lighted very early. On the present occasion a great many sixpenny points were scored, and much tea and cake were consumed. Mr. Gibson never played whist,--nor did Dorothy. That young John Wright and Mary Cheriton should do nothing but talk to each other was a thing of course, as they were to be married in a month or two. Then there was Ida Cheriton, who could not very well be left at home; and Mr. Gibson made himself pleasant to Dorothy and Ida Cheriton, instead of making himself pleasant to the two Miss Frenches. Gentlemen in provincial towns quite understand that, from the nature of social circumstances in the provinces, they should always be ready to be pleasant at least to a pair at a time. At a few minutes before twelve they were all gone, and then came the shock. "Dolly, my dear, what do you think of Mr. Gibson?" "Think of him, Aunt Stanbury?" "Yes; think of him;--think of him. I suppose you know how to think?" "He seems to me always to preach very drawling sermons." "Oh, bother his sermons! I don't care anything about his sermons now. He is a very good clergyman, and the Dean thinks very much about him." "I am glad of that, Aunt Stanbury." Then came the shock. "Don't you think it would be a very good thing if you were to become Mrs. Gibson?" It may be presumed that Miss Stanbury had assured herself that she could not make progress with Dorothy by "beating about the bush." There was an inaptitude in her niece to comprehend the advantages of the situations, which made some direct explanation absolutely necessary. Dorothy stood half-smiling, half-crying, when she heard the proposition, her cheeks suffused with that pink colour, and with both her hands extended with surprise. "I've been thinking about it ever since you've been here," said Miss Stanbury. "I think he likes Miss French," said Dorothy, in a whisper. "Which of them? I don't believe he likes them at all. Maybe, if they go on long enough, they may be able to toss up for him. But I don't think it of him. Of course they're after him, but he'll be too wise for them. And he's more of a fool than I take him to be if he don't prefer you to them." Dorothy remained quite silent. To such an address as this it was impossible that she should reply a word. It was incredible to her that any man should prefer herself to either of the young women in question; but she was too much confounded for the expression even of her humility. "At any rate you're wholesome, and pleasant and modest," said Miss Stanbury. Dorothy did not quite like being told that she was wholesome; but, nevertheless, she was thankful to her aunt. "I'll tell you what it is," continued Miss Stanbury; "I hate all mysteries, especially with those I love. I've saved two thousand pounds, which I've put you down for in my will. Now, if you and he can make it up together, I'll give you the money at once. There's no knowing how often an old woman may alter her will; but when you've got a thing, you've got it. Mr. Gibson would know the meaning of a bird in the hand as well as anybody. Now those girls at Heavitree will never have above a few hundreds each, and not that while their mother lives." Dorothy made one little attempt at squeezing her aunt's hand, wishing to thank her aunt for this affectionate generosity; but she had hardly accomplished the squeeze, when she desisted, feeling strangely averse to any acknowledgment of such a boon as that which had been offered to her. "And now, good night, my dear. If I did not think you a very sensible young woman, I should not trust you by saying all this." Then they parted, and Dorothy soon found herself alone in her bedroom. To have a husband of her own, a perfect gentleman too, and a clergyman;--and to go to him with a fortune! She believed that two thousand pounds represented nearly a hundred a year. It was a large fortune in those parts,--according to her understanding of ladies' fortunes. And that she, the humblest of the humble, should be selected for so honourable a position! She had never quite known, quite understood as yet, whether she had made good her footing in her aunt's house in a manner pleasant to her aunt. More than once or twice she had spoken even of going back to her mother, and things had been said which had almost made her think that her aunt had been angry with her. But now, after a month or two of joint residence, her aunt was offering to her--two thousand pounds and a husband! But was it within her aunt's power to offer to her the husband? Mr. Gibson had always been very civil to her. She had spoken more to Mr. Gibson than to any other man in Exeter. But it had never occurred to her for a moment that Mr. Gibson had any special liking for her. Was it probable that he would ever entertain any feeling of that kind for her? It certainly had occurred to her before now that Mr. Gibson was sometimes bored by the Miss Frenches;--but then gentlemen do get bored by ladies. And at last she asked herself another question,--had she any special liking for Mr. Gibson? As far as she understood such matters everything was blank there. Thinking of that other question, she went to sleep. CHAPTER XXIII. COLONEL OSBORNE AND MR. BOZZLE RETURN TO LONDON. Hugh Stanbury went down on the Saturday, by the early express to Exeter, on his road to Lessboro'. He took his ticket through to Lessboro', not purposing to stay at Exeter; but, from the exigencies of the various trains, it was necessary that he should remain for half an hour at the Exeter Station. This took place on the Saturday, and Colonel Osborne's visit to the Clock House had been made on the Friday. Colonel Osborne had returned to Lessboro', had slept again at Mrs. Clegg's house, and returned to London on the Saturday. It so happened that he also was obliged to spend half an hour at the Exeter Station, and that his half-hour, and Hugh Stanbury's half-hour, were one and the same. They met, therefore, as a matter of course, upon the platform. Stanbury was the first to see the other, and he found that he must determine on the spur of the moment what he would say, and what he would do. He had received no direct commission from Trevelyan as to his meeting with Colonel Osborne. Trevelyan had declared that, as to the matter of quarrelling, he meant to retain the privilege of doing that for himself; but Stanbury had quite understood that this was only the vague expression of an angry man. The Colonel had taken a glass of sherry, and had lighted a cigar, and was quite comfortable,--having thrown aside, for a time, that consciousness of the futility of his journey which had perplexed him,--when Stanbury accosted him. "What! Mr. Stanbury,--how do you do? Fine day, isn't it? Are you going up or down?" "I'm going to see my own people at Nuncombe Putney, a village beyond Lessboro'," said Hugh. "Ah;--indeed." Colonel Osborne of course perceived at once that as this man was going to the house at which he had just been visiting, it would be better that he should himself explain what he had done. If he were to allow this mention of Nuncombe Putney to pass without saying that he himself had been there, he would be convicted of at least some purpose of secrecy in what he had been doing. "Very strange," said he; "I was at Nuncombe Putney myself yesterday." "I know you were," said Stanbury. "And how did you know it?" There had been a tone of anger in Stanbury's voice which Colonel Osborne had at once appreciated, and which made him assume a similar tone. As they spoke there was a man standing in a corner close by the bookstall, with his eye upon them, and that man was Bozzle, the ex-policeman,--who was doing his duty with sedulous activity by seeing "the Colonel" back to London. Now Bozzle did not know Hugh Stanbury, and was angry with himself that he should be so ignorant. It is the pride of a detective ex-policeman to know everybody that comes in his way. "Well, I had been so informed. My friend Trevelyan knew that you were there,--or that you were going there." "I don't care who knew that I was going there," said the Colonel. "I won't pretend to understand how that may be, Colonel Osborne; but I think you must be aware, after what took place in Curzon Street, that it would have been better that you should not have attempted to see Mrs. Trevelyan. Whether you have seen her I do not know." "What business is it of yours, Mr. Stanbury, whether I have seen that lady or not?" "Unhappily for me, her husband has made it my business." "Very unhappily for you, I should say." "And the lady is staying at my mother's house." "I presume the lady is not a prisoner in your mother's house, and that your mother's hospitality is not so restricted but that her guest may see an old friend under her roof." This Colonel Osborne said with an assumed look of almost righteous indignation, which was not at all lost upon Bozzle. They had returned back towards the bookstall, and Bozzle, with his eyes fixed on a copy of the "D. R." which he had just bought, was straining his ears to the utmost to catch what was being said. "You best know whether you have seen her or not." "I have seen her." "Then I shall take leave to tell you, Colonel Osborne, that you have acted in a most unfriendly way, and have done that which must tend to keep an affectionate husband apart from his wife." "Sir, I don't at all understand this kind of thing addressed to me. The father of the lady you are speaking of has been my most intimate friend for thirty years." After all, the Colonel was a mean man when he could take pride in his youth, and defend himself on the score of his age, in one and the same proceeding. "I have nothing further to say," replied Stanbury. "You have said too much already, Mr. Stanbury." "I think not, Colonel Osborne. You have, I fear, done an incredible deal of mischief by going to Nuncombe Putney; and, after all that you have heard on the subject, you must have known that it would be mischievous. I cannot understand how you can | series | How many times the word 'series' appears in the text? | 0 |
very great,--so great that in its first flush she could not restrain herself from exhibiting it to Dorothy. "Well,--well,--what do you think, Dolly?" "About what, aunt? I don't know who the letter is from." "Nobody writes to me now so constant as your sister Priscilla. The letter is from Priscilla. Colonel Osborne has been at the Clock House, after all. I knew that he would be there. I knew it! I knew it!" Dorothy, when she heard this, was dumbfounded. She had rested her defence of her mother and sister on the impossibility of any such visit being admitted. According to her lights the coming of Colonel Osborne, after all that had been said, would be like the coming of Lucifer himself. The Colonel was, to her imagination, a horrible roaring lion. She had no idea that the erratic manoeuvres of such a beast might be milder and more innocent than the wooing of any turtle-dove. She would have asked whether the roaring lion had gone away again, and, if so, whether he had taken his prey with him, were it not that she was too much frightened at the moment to ask any question. That her mother and sister should have been wilfully concerned in such iniquity was quite incredible to her, but yet she did not know how to defend them. "But are you quite sure of it, Aunt Stanbury? May there not be another mistake?" "No mistake this time, I think, my dear. Any way, Priscilla says that he is there." Now in this there was a mistake. Priscilla had said nothing of the kind. "You don't mean that he is staying at the Clock House, Aunt Stanbury?" "I don't know where he is now. I'm not his keeper. And, I'm glad to say, I'm not the lady's keeper either. Ah, me! It's a bad business. You can't touch pitch and not be defiled, my dear. If your mother wanted the Clock House, I would sooner have taken it for her myself than that all this should have happened,--for the family's sake." But Miss Stanbury, when she was alone, and when she had read her niece's three letters again and again, began to understand something of Priscilla's honesty, and began also to perceive that there might have been a great difficulty respecting the Colonel, for which neither her niece nor her sister-in-law could fairly be held to be responsible. It was perhaps the plainest characteristic of all the Stanburys that they were never wilfully dishonest. Ignorant, prejudiced, and passionate they might be. In her anger Miss Stanbury, of Exeter, could be almost malicious; and her niece at Nuncombe Putney was very like her aunt. Each could say most cruel things, most unjust things, when actuated by a mistaken consciousness of perfect right on her own side. But neither of them could lie,--even by silence. Let an error be brought home to either of them,--so as to be acknowledged at home,--and the error would be assuredly confessed aloud. And, indeed, with differences in the shades, Hugh and Dorothy were of the same nature. They were possessed of sweeter tempers than their aunt and sister, but they were filled with the same eager readiness to believe themselves to be right,--and to own themselves to others to be wrong, when they had been constrained to make such confession to themselves. The chances of life, and something probably of inner nature, had made Dorothy mild and obedient; whereas, in regard to Hugh, the circumstances of his life and disposition had made him obstinate and self-reliant. But in all was to be found the same belief in self,--which amounted almost to conceit,--the same warmth of affection, and the same love of justice. When Miss Stanbury had again perused the correspondence, and had come to see, dimly, how things had gone at Nuncombe Putney,--when the conviction came upon her mind that Priscilla had entertained a horror as to the coming of this Colonel equal to that which she herself had felt,--when her imagination painted to her all that her niece had suffered, her heart was softened somewhat. She had declared to Dorothy that pitch, if touched, would certainly defile; and she had, at first, intended to send the same opinion, couched in very forcible words, to her correspondents at the Clock House. They should not continue to go astray for want of being told that they were going astray. It must be acknowledged, too, that there was a certain amount of ignoble wrath in the bosom of Miss Stanbury because her sister-in-law had taken the Clock House. She had never been told, and had not even condescended to ask Dorothy, whether the house was taken and paid for by her nephew on behalf of his mother, or whether it was paid for by Mr. Trevelyan on behalf of his wife. In the latter case, Mrs. Stanbury would, she thought, be little more than an upper servant, or keeper,--as she expressed it to herself. Such an arrangement appeared to her to be quite disgraceful in a Stanbury; but yet she believed that such must be the existing arrangement, as she could not bring herself to conceive that Hugh Stanbury could keep such an establishment over his mother's head out of money earned by writing for a penny newspaper. There would be a triumph of democracy in this which would vanquish her altogether. She had, therefore, been anxious enough to trample on Priscilla and upon all the affairs of the Clock House; but yet she had been unable to ignore the nobility of Priscilla's truth, and having acknowledged it to herself she found herself compelled to acknowledge it aloud. She sat down to think in silence, and it was not till she had fortified herself by her first draught of beer, and till she had finished her first portion of bread and cheese, that she spoke. "I have written to your sister herself, this time," she said. "I don't know that I ever wrote a line to her before in my life." "Poor Priscilla!" Dorothy did not mean to be severe on her aunt, either in regard to the letters which had not been written, or to the one letter which now had been written. But Dorothy pitied her sister, whom she felt to be in trouble. "Well; I don't know about her being so poor. Priscilla, I'll be bound, thinks as well of herself as any of us do." "She'd cut her fingers off before she'd mean to do wrong," said Dorothy. "But what does that come to? What's the good of that? It isn't meaning to do right that will save us. For aught I know, the Radicals may mean to do right. Mr. Beales means to do right--perhaps." "But, aunt,--if everybody did the best they could?" "Tush, my dear! you are getting beyond your depth. There are such things still, thank God! as spiritual pastors and masters. Entrust yourself to them. Do what they think right." Now if aught were known in Exeter of Miss Stanbury, this was known,--that if any clergyman volunteered to give to her, unasked and uninvited, counsel, either ghostly or bodily, that clergyman would be sent from her presence with a wigging which he would not soon forget. The thing had been tried more than once, and the wigging had been complete. There was no more attentive listener in church than Miss Stanbury; and she would, now and again, appeal to a clergyman on some knotty point. But for the ordinary authority of spiritual pastors and masters she shewed more of abstract reverence than of practical obedience. "I'm sure Priscilla does the best she can," said Dorothy, going back to the old subject. "Ah,--well,--yes. What I want to say about Priscilla is this. It is a thousand pities she is so obstinate, so pig-headed, so certain that she can manage everything for herself better than anybody else can for her." Miss Stanbury was striving to say something good of her niece, but found the task to be difficult and distasteful to her. "She has managed for mamma ever so many years; and since she took it we have hardly ever been in debt," said Dorothy. "She'll do all that, I don't doubt. I don't suppose she cares much for ribbons and false hair for herself." "Who? Priscilla! The idea of Priscilla with false hair!" "I dare say not;--I dare say not. I do not think she'd spend her mother's money on things of that kind." "Aunt Stanbury, you don't know her." "Ah; very well. Perhaps I don't. But, come, my dear, you are very hard upon me, and very anxious to take your sister's part. And what is it all about? I've just written to her as civil a letter as one woman ever wrote to another. And if I had chosen, I could have,--could have,--h--m--m." Miss Stanbury, as she hesitated for words in which to complete her sentence, revelled in the strength of the vituperation which she could have poured upon her niece's head, had she chosen to write her last letter about Colonel Osborne in her severe strain. "If you have written kindly to her, I am so much obliged to you," said Dorothy. "The truth is, Priscilla has meant to be right. Meaning won't go for much when the account is taken, unless the meaning comes from a proper source. But the poor girl has done as well as she has known how. I believe it is Hugh's fault more than anybody else's." This accusation was not pleasant to Dorothy, but she was too intent just now on Priscilla's case to defend her brother. "That man never ought to have been there; and that woman never ought to have been there. There cannot be a doubt about that. If Priscilla were sitting there opposite to me, she would own as much. I am sure she would." Miss Stanbury was quite right if she meant to assert that Priscilla had owned as much to herself. "And because I think so, I am willing to forgive her part in the matter. To me, personally, she has always been rude,--most uncourteous,--and,--and,--and unlike a younger woman to an older one, and an aunt, and all that. I suppose it is because she hates me." "Oh, no, Aunt Stanbury!" "My dear, I suppose it is. Why else should she treat me in such a way? But I do believe of her that she would rather eat an honest, dry crust, than dishonest cake and ale." "She would rather starve than pick up a crumb that was dishonest," said Dorothy, fairly bursting out into tears. "I believe it. I do believe it. There; what more can I say? Clock House, indeed! What matter what house you live in, so that you can pay the rent of it honestly?" "But the rent is paid--honestly," said Dorothy, amidst her sobs. "It's paid, I don't doubt. I dare say the woman's husband and your brother see to that among them. Oh, that my boy, Hugh, as he used to be, should have brought us all to this! But there's no knowing what they won't do among them. Reform, indeed! Murder, sacrilege, adultery, treason, atheism;--that's what Reform means; besides every kind of nastiness under the sun." In which latter category Miss Stanbury intended especially to include bad printer's ink, and paper made of straw. The reader may as well see the letter which was as civil a letter as ever one woman wrote to another, so that the collection of the Stanbury correspondence may be made perfect. The Close, August 6, 186--. MY DEAR NIECE, Your letter has not astonished me nearly as much as you expected it would. I am an older woman than you, and, though you will not believe it, I have seen more of the world. I knew that the gentleman would come after the lady. Such gentlemen always do go after their ladies. As for yourself, I can see all that you have done, and pretty nearly hear all that you have said, as plain as a pike-staff. I do you the credit of believing that the plan is none of your making. I know who made the plan, and a very bad plan it is. As to my former letters and the other man, I understand all about it. You were very angry that I should accuse you of having this man at the house; and you were right to be angry. I respect you for having been angry. But what does all that say as to his coming,--now that he has come? If you will consent to take an old woman's advice, get rid of the whole boiling of them. I say it in firm love and friendship, for I am,-- Your affectionate aunt, JEMIMA STANBURY. The special vaunted courtesy of this letter consisted, no doubt, in the expression of respect which it contained, and in that declaration of affection with which it terminated. The epithet was one which Miss Stanbury would by no means use promiscuously in writing to her nearest relatives. She had not intended to use it when she commenced her letter to Priscilla. But the respect of which she had spoken had glowed, and had warmed itself into something of temporary love; and feeling at the moment that she was an affectionate aunt, Miss Stanbury had so put herself down in her letter. Having done such a deed she felt that Dorothy, though Dorothy knew nothing about it, ought in her gratitude to listen patiently to anything that she might now choose to say against Priscilla. But Dorothy was in truth very miserable, and in her misery wrote a long letter that afternoon to her mother,--which, however, it will not be necessary to place entire among the Stanbury records,--begging that she might be informed as to the true circumstances of the case. She did not say a word of censure in regard either to her mother or sister; but she expressed an opinion in the mildest words which she could use, that if anything had happened which had compromised their names since their residence at the Clock House, she, Dorothy, had better go home and join them. The meaning of which was that it would not become her to remain in the house in the Close, if the house in the Close would be disgraced by her presence. Poor Dorothy had taught herself to think that the iniquity of roaring lions spread itself very widely. In the afternoon she made some such proposition to her aunt in ambiguous terms. "Go home!" said Miss Stanbury. "Now?" "If you think it best, Aunt Stanbury." "And put yourself in the middle of all this iniquity and abomination! I don't suppose you want to know the woman?" "No, indeed!" "Or the man?" "Oh, Aunt Stanbury!" "It's my belief that no decent gentleman in Exeter would look at you again if you were to go and live among them at Nuncombe Putney while all this is going on. No, no. Let one of you be saved out of it, at least." Aunt Stanbury had more than once made use of expressions which brought the faintest touch of gentle pink up to her niece's cheeks. We must do Dorothy the justice of saying that she had never dreamed of being looked at by any gentleman, whether decent or indecent. Her life at Nuncombe Putney had been of such a nature, that though she knew that other girls were looked at, and even made love to, and that they got married and had children, no dim vision of such a career for herself had ever presented itself to her eyes. She had known very well that her mother and sister and herself were people apart,--ladies, and yet so extremely poor, that they could only maintain their rank by the most rigid seclusion. To live, and work unseen, was what the world had ordained for her. Then her call to Exeter had come upon her, and she had conceived that she was henceforth to be the humble companion of a very imperious old aunt. Her aunt, indeed, was imperious, but did not seem to require humility in her companion. All the good things that were eaten and drunk were divided between them with the strictest impartiality. Dorothy's cushion and hassock in the church and in the cathedral were the same as her aunt's. Her bed-room was made very comfortable for her. Her aunt never gave her any orders before company, and always spoke of her before the servants as one whom they were to obey and respect. Gradually Dorothy came to understand the meaning of this;--but her aunt would sometimes say things about young men which she did not quite understand. Could it be that her aunt supposed that any young man would come and wish to marry her,--her, Dorothy Stanbury? She herself had not quite so strong an aversion to men in general as that which Priscilla felt, but she had not as yet found that any of those whom she had seen at Exeter were peculiarly agreeable to her. Before she went to bed that night her aunt said a word to her which startled her more than she had ever been startled before. On that evening Miss Stanbury had a few friends to drink tea with her. There were Mr. and Mrs. Crumbie, and Mrs. MacHugh of course, and the Cheritons from Alphington, and the Miss Apjohns from Helion Villa, and old Mr. Powel all the way from Haldon, and two of the Wrights from their house in the Northernhay, and Mr. Gibson;--but the Miss Frenches from Heavitree were not there. "Why don't you have the Miss Frenches, aunt?" Dorothy had asked. "Bother the Miss Frenches! I'm not bound to have them every time. There's Camilla has been and got herself a band-box on the back of her head a great deal bigger than the place inside where her brains ought to be." But the band-box at the back of Camilla French's head was not the sole cause of the omission of the two sisters from the list of Miss Stanbury's visitors on this occasion. The party went off very much as usual. There were two whist tables, for Miss Stanbury could not bear to cut out. At other houses than her own, when there was cutting out, it was quite understood that Miss Stanbury was to be allowed to keep her place. "I'll go away, and sit out there by myself, if you like," she would say. But she was never thus banished; and at her own house she usually contrived that there should be no system of banishment. She would play dummy whist, preferring it to the four-handed game; and, when hard driven, and with a meet opponent, would not even despise double-dummy. It was told of her and of Mrs. MacHugh that they had played double-dummy for a whole evening together; and they who were given to calumny had declared that the candles on that evening had been lighted very early. On the present occasion a great many sixpenny points were scored, and much tea and cake were consumed. Mr. Gibson never played whist,--nor did Dorothy. That young John Wright and Mary Cheriton should do nothing but talk to each other was a thing of course, as they were to be married in a month or two. Then there was Ida Cheriton, who could not very well be left at home; and Mr. Gibson made himself pleasant to Dorothy and Ida Cheriton, instead of making himself pleasant to the two Miss Frenches. Gentlemen in provincial towns quite understand that, from the nature of social circumstances in the provinces, they should always be ready to be pleasant at least to a pair at a time. At a few minutes before twelve they were all gone, and then came the shock. "Dolly, my dear, what do you think of Mr. Gibson?" "Think of him, Aunt Stanbury?" "Yes; think of him;--think of him. I suppose you know how to think?" "He seems to me always to preach very drawling sermons." "Oh, bother his sermons! I don't care anything about his sermons now. He is a very good clergyman, and the Dean thinks very much about him." "I am glad of that, Aunt Stanbury." Then came the shock. "Don't you think it would be a very good thing if you were to become Mrs. Gibson?" It may be presumed that Miss Stanbury had assured herself that she could not make progress with Dorothy by "beating about the bush." There was an inaptitude in her niece to comprehend the advantages of the situations, which made some direct explanation absolutely necessary. Dorothy stood half-smiling, half-crying, when she heard the proposition, her cheeks suffused with that pink colour, and with both her hands extended with surprise. "I've been thinking about it ever since you've been here," said Miss Stanbury. "I think he likes Miss French," said Dorothy, in a whisper. "Which of them? I don't believe he likes them at all. Maybe, if they go on long enough, they may be able to toss up for him. But I don't think it of him. Of course they're after him, but he'll be too wise for them. And he's more of a fool than I take him to be if he don't prefer you to them." Dorothy remained quite silent. To such an address as this it was impossible that she should reply a word. It was incredible to her that any man should prefer herself to either of the young women in question; but she was too much confounded for the expression even of her humility. "At any rate you're wholesome, and pleasant and modest," said Miss Stanbury. Dorothy did not quite like being told that she was wholesome; but, nevertheless, she was thankful to her aunt. "I'll tell you what it is," continued Miss Stanbury; "I hate all mysteries, especially with those I love. I've saved two thousand pounds, which I've put you down for in my will. Now, if you and he can make it up together, I'll give you the money at once. There's no knowing how often an old woman may alter her will; but when you've got a thing, you've got it. Mr. Gibson would know the meaning of a bird in the hand as well as anybody. Now those girls at Heavitree will never have above a few hundreds each, and not that while their mother lives." Dorothy made one little attempt at squeezing her aunt's hand, wishing to thank her aunt for this affectionate generosity; but she had hardly accomplished the squeeze, when she desisted, feeling strangely averse to any acknowledgment of such a boon as that which had been offered to her. "And now, good night, my dear. If I did not think you a very sensible young woman, I should not trust you by saying all this." Then they parted, and Dorothy soon found herself alone in her bedroom. To have a husband of her own, a perfect gentleman too, and a clergyman;--and to go to him with a fortune! She believed that two thousand pounds represented nearly a hundred a year. It was a large fortune in those parts,--according to her understanding of ladies' fortunes. And that she, the humblest of the humble, should be selected for so honourable a position! She had never quite known, quite understood as yet, whether she had made good her footing in her aunt's house in a manner pleasant to her aunt. More than once or twice she had spoken even of going back to her mother, and things had been said which had almost made her think that her aunt had been angry with her. But now, after a month or two of joint residence, her aunt was offering to her--two thousand pounds and a husband! But was it within her aunt's power to offer to her the husband? Mr. Gibson had always been very civil to her. She had spoken more to Mr. Gibson than to any other man in Exeter. But it had never occurred to her for a moment that Mr. Gibson had any special liking for her. Was it probable that he would ever entertain any feeling of that kind for her? It certainly had occurred to her before now that Mr. Gibson was sometimes bored by the Miss Frenches;--but then gentlemen do get bored by ladies. And at last she asked herself another question,--had she any special liking for Mr. Gibson? As far as she understood such matters everything was blank there. Thinking of that other question, she went to sleep. CHAPTER XXIII. COLONEL OSBORNE AND MR. BOZZLE RETURN TO LONDON. Hugh Stanbury went down on the Saturday, by the early express to Exeter, on his road to Lessboro'. He took his ticket through to Lessboro', not purposing to stay at Exeter; but, from the exigencies of the various trains, it was necessary that he should remain for half an hour at the Exeter Station. This took place on the Saturday, and Colonel Osborne's visit to the Clock House had been made on the Friday. Colonel Osborne had returned to Lessboro', had slept again at Mrs. Clegg's house, and returned to London on the Saturday. It so happened that he also was obliged to spend half an hour at the Exeter Station, and that his half-hour, and Hugh Stanbury's half-hour, were one and the same. They met, therefore, as a matter of course, upon the platform. Stanbury was the first to see the other, and he found that he must determine on the spur of the moment what he would say, and what he would do. He had received no direct commission from Trevelyan as to his meeting with Colonel Osborne. Trevelyan had declared that, as to the matter of quarrelling, he meant to retain the privilege of doing that for himself; but Stanbury had quite understood that this was only the vague expression of an angry man. The Colonel had taken a glass of sherry, and had lighted a cigar, and was quite comfortable,--having thrown aside, for a time, that consciousness of the futility of his journey which had perplexed him,--when Stanbury accosted him. "What! Mr. Stanbury,--how do you do? Fine day, isn't it? Are you going up or down?" "I'm going to see my own people at Nuncombe Putney, a village beyond Lessboro'," said Hugh. "Ah;--indeed." Colonel Osborne of course perceived at once that as this man was going to the house at which he had just been visiting, it would be better that he should himself explain what he had done. If he were to allow this mention of Nuncombe Putney to pass without saying that he himself had been there, he would be convicted of at least some purpose of secrecy in what he had been doing. "Very strange," said he; "I was at Nuncombe Putney myself yesterday." "I know you were," said Stanbury. "And how did you know it?" There had been a tone of anger in Stanbury's voice which Colonel Osborne had at once appreciated, and which made him assume a similar tone. As they spoke there was a man standing in a corner close by the bookstall, with his eye upon them, and that man was Bozzle, the ex-policeman,--who was doing his duty with sedulous activity by seeing "the Colonel" back to London. Now Bozzle did not know Hugh Stanbury, and was angry with himself that he should be so ignorant. It is the pride of a detective ex-policeman to know everybody that comes in his way. "Well, I had been so informed. My friend Trevelyan knew that you were there,--or that you were going there." "I don't care who knew that I was going there," said the Colonel. "I won't pretend to understand how that may be, Colonel Osborne; but I think you must be aware, after what took place in Curzon Street, that it would have been better that you should not have attempted to see Mrs. Trevelyan. Whether you have seen her I do not know." "What business is it of yours, Mr. Stanbury, whether I have seen that lady or not?" "Unhappily for me, her husband has made it my business." "Very unhappily for you, I should say." "And the lady is staying at my mother's house." "I presume the lady is not a prisoner in your mother's house, and that your mother's hospitality is not so restricted but that her guest may see an old friend under her roof." This Colonel Osborne said with an assumed look of almost righteous indignation, which was not at all lost upon Bozzle. They had returned back towards the bookstall, and Bozzle, with his eyes fixed on a copy of the "D. R." which he had just bought, was straining his ears to the utmost to catch what was being said. "You best know whether you have seen her or not." "I have seen her." "Then I shall take leave to tell you, Colonel Osborne, that you have acted in a most unfriendly way, and have done that which must tend to keep an affectionate husband apart from his wife." "Sir, I don't at all understand this kind of thing addressed to me. The father of the lady you are speaking of has been my most intimate friend for thirty years." After all, the Colonel was a mean man when he could take pride in his youth, and defend himself on the score of his age, in one and the same proceeding. "I have nothing further to say," replied Stanbury. "You have said too much already, Mr. Stanbury." "I think not, Colonel Osborne. You have, I fear, done an incredible deal of mischief by going to Nuncombe Putney; and, after all that you have heard on the subject, you must have known that it would be mischievous. I cannot understand how you can | belief | How many times the word 'belief' appears in the text? | 2 |
very great,--so great that in its first flush she could not restrain herself from exhibiting it to Dorothy. "Well,--well,--what do you think, Dolly?" "About what, aunt? I don't know who the letter is from." "Nobody writes to me now so constant as your sister Priscilla. The letter is from Priscilla. Colonel Osborne has been at the Clock House, after all. I knew that he would be there. I knew it! I knew it!" Dorothy, when she heard this, was dumbfounded. She had rested her defence of her mother and sister on the impossibility of any such visit being admitted. According to her lights the coming of Colonel Osborne, after all that had been said, would be like the coming of Lucifer himself. The Colonel was, to her imagination, a horrible roaring lion. She had no idea that the erratic manoeuvres of such a beast might be milder and more innocent than the wooing of any turtle-dove. She would have asked whether the roaring lion had gone away again, and, if so, whether he had taken his prey with him, were it not that she was too much frightened at the moment to ask any question. That her mother and sister should have been wilfully concerned in such iniquity was quite incredible to her, but yet she did not know how to defend them. "But are you quite sure of it, Aunt Stanbury? May there not be another mistake?" "No mistake this time, I think, my dear. Any way, Priscilla says that he is there." Now in this there was a mistake. Priscilla had said nothing of the kind. "You don't mean that he is staying at the Clock House, Aunt Stanbury?" "I don't know where he is now. I'm not his keeper. And, I'm glad to say, I'm not the lady's keeper either. Ah, me! It's a bad business. You can't touch pitch and not be defiled, my dear. If your mother wanted the Clock House, I would sooner have taken it for her myself than that all this should have happened,--for the family's sake." But Miss Stanbury, when she was alone, and when she had read her niece's three letters again and again, began to understand something of Priscilla's honesty, and began also to perceive that there might have been a great difficulty respecting the Colonel, for which neither her niece nor her sister-in-law could fairly be held to be responsible. It was perhaps the plainest characteristic of all the Stanburys that they were never wilfully dishonest. Ignorant, prejudiced, and passionate they might be. In her anger Miss Stanbury, of Exeter, could be almost malicious; and her niece at Nuncombe Putney was very like her aunt. Each could say most cruel things, most unjust things, when actuated by a mistaken consciousness of perfect right on her own side. But neither of them could lie,--even by silence. Let an error be brought home to either of them,--so as to be acknowledged at home,--and the error would be assuredly confessed aloud. And, indeed, with differences in the shades, Hugh and Dorothy were of the same nature. They were possessed of sweeter tempers than their aunt and sister, but they were filled with the same eager readiness to believe themselves to be right,--and to own themselves to others to be wrong, when they had been constrained to make such confession to themselves. The chances of life, and something probably of inner nature, had made Dorothy mild and obedient; whereas, in regard to Hugh, the circumstances of his life and disposition had made him obstinate and self-reliant. But in all was to be found the same belief in self,--which amounted almost to conceit,--the same warmth of affection, and the same love of justice. When Miss Stanbury had again perused the correspondence, and had come to see, dimly, how things had gone at Nuncombe Putney,--when the conviction came upon her mind that Priscilla had entertained a horror as to the coming of this Colonel equal to that which she herself had felt,--when her imagination painted to her all that her niece had suffered, her heart was softened somewhat. She had declared to Dorothy that pitch, if touched, would certainly defile; and she had, at first, intended to send the same opinion, couched in very forcible words, to her correspondents at the Clock House. They should not continue to go astray for want of being told that they were going astray. It must be acknowledged, too, that there was a certain amount of ignoble wrath in the bosom of Miss Stanbury because her sister-in-law had taken the Clock House. She had never been told, and had not even condescended to ask Dorothy, whether the house was taken and paid for by her nephew on behalf of his mother, or whether it was paid for by Mr. Trevelyan on behalf of his wife. In the latter case, Mrs. Stanbury would, she thought, be little more than an upper servant, or keeper,--as she expressed it to herself. Such an arrangement appeared to her to be quite disgraceful in a Stanbury; but yet she believed that such must be the existing arrangement, as she could not bring herself to conceive that Hugh Stanbury could keep such an establishment over his mother's head out of money earned by writing for a penny newspaper. There would be a triumph of democracy in this which would vanquish her altogether. She had, therefore, been anxious enough to trample on Priscilla and upon all the affairs of the Clock House; but yet she had been unable to ignore the nobility of Priscilla's truth, and having acknowledged it to herself she found herself compelled to acknowledge it aloud. She sat down to think in silence, and it was not till she had fortified herself by her first draught of beer, and till she had finished her first portion of bread and cheese, that she spoke. "I have written to your sister herself, this time," she said. "I don't know that I ever wrote a line to her before in my life." "Poor Priscilla!" Dorothy did not mean to be severe on her aunt, either in regard to the letters which had not been written, or to the one letter which now had been written. But Dorothy pitied her sister, whom she felt to be in trouble. "Well; I don't know about her being so poor. Priscilla, I'll be bound, thinks as well of herself as any of us do." "She'd cut her fingers off before she'd mean to do wrong," said Dorothy. "But what does that come to? What's the good of that? It isn't meaning to do right that will save us. For aught I know, the Radicals may mean to do right. Mr. Beales means to do right--perhaps." "But, aunt,--if everybody did the best they could?" "Tush, my dear! you are getting beyond your depth. There are such things still, thank God! as spiritual pastors and masters. Entrust yourself to them. Do what they think right." Now if aught were known in Exeter of Miss Stanbury, this was known,--that if any clergyman volunteered to give to her, unasked and uninvited, counsel, either ghostly or bodily, that clergyman would be sent from her presence with a wigging which he would not soon forget. The thing had been tried more than once, and the wigging had been complete. There was no more attentive listener in church than Miss Stanbury; and she would, now and again, appeal to a clergyman on some knotty point. But for the ordinary authority of spiritual pastors and masters she shewed more of abstract reverence than of practical obedience. "I'm sure Priscilla does the best she can," said Dorothy, going back to the old subject. "Ah,--well,--yes. What I want to say about Priscilla is this. It is a thousand pities she is so obstinate, so pig-headed, so certain that she can manage everything for herself better than anybody else can for her." Miss Stanbury was striving to say something good of her niece, but found the task to be difficult and distasteful to her. "She has managed for mamma ever so many years; and since she took it we have hardly ever been in debt," said Dorothy. "She'll do all that, I don't doubt. I don't suppose she cares much for ribbons and false hair for herself." "Who? Priscilla! The idea of Priscilla with false hair!" "I dare say not;--I dare say not. I do not think she'd spend her mother's money on things of that kind." "Aunt Stanbury, you don't know her." "Ah; very well. Perhaps I don't. But, come, my dear, you are very hard upon me, and very anxious to take your sister's part. And what is it all about? I've just written to her as civil a letter as one woman ever wrote to another. And if I had chosen, I could have,--could have,--h--m--m." Miss Stanbury, as she hesitated for words in which to complete her sentence, revelled in the strength of the vituperation which she could have poured upon her niece's head, had she chosen to write her last letter about Colonel Osborne in her severe strain. "If you have written kindly to her, I am so much obliged to you," said Dorothy. "The truth is, Priscilla has meant to be right. Meaning won't go for much when the account is taken, unless the meaning comes from a proper source. But the poor girl has done as well as she has known how. I believe it is Hugh's fault more than anybody else's." This accusation was not pleasant to Dorothy, but she was too intent just now on Priscilla's case to defend her brother. "That man never ought to have been there; and that woman never ought to have been there. There cannot be a doubt about that. If Priscilla were sitting there opposite to me, she would own as much. I am sure she would." Miss Stanbury was quite right if she meant to assert that Priscilla had owned as much to herself. "And because I think so, I am willing to forgive her part in the matter. To me, personally, she has always been rude,--most uncourteous,--and,--and,--and unlike a younger woman to an older one, and an aunt, and all that. I suppose it is because she hates me." "Oh, no, Aunt Stanbury!" "My dear, I suppose it is. Why else should she treat me in such a way? But I do believe of her that she would rather eat an honest, dry crust, than dishonest cake and ale." "She would rather starve than pick up a crumb that was dishonest," said Dorothy, fairly bursting out into tears. "I believe it. I do believe it. There; what more can I say? Clock House, indeed! What matter what house you live in, so that you can pay the rent of it honestly?" "But the rent is paid--honestly," said Dorothy, amidst her sobs. "It's paid, I don't doubt. I dare say the woman's husband and your brother see to that among them. Oh, that my boy, Hugh, as he used to be, should have brought us all to this! But there's no knowing what they won't do among them. Reform, indeed! Murder, sacrilege, adultery, treason, atheism;--that's what Reform means; besides every kind of nastiness under the sun." In which latter category Miss Stanbury intended especially to include bad printer's ink, and paper made of straw. The reader may as well see the letter which was as civil a letter as ever one woman wrote to another, so that the collection of the Stanbury correspondence may be made perfect. The Close, August 6, 186--. MY DEAR NIECE, Your letter has not astonished me nearly as much as you expected it would. I am an older woman than you, and, though you will not believe it, I have seen more of the world. I knew that the gentleman would come after the lady. Such gentlemen always do go after their ladies. As for yourself, I can see all that you have done, and pretty nearly hear all that you have said, as plain as a pike-staff. I do you the credit of believing that the plan is none of your making. I know who made the plan, and a very bad plan it is. As to my former letters and the other man, I understand all about it. You were very angry that I should accuse you of having this man at the house; and you were right to be angry. I respect you for having been angry. But what does all that say as to his coming,--now that he has come? If you will consent to take an old woman's advice, get rid of the whole boiling of them. I say it in firm love and friendship, for I am,-- Your affectionate aunt, JEMIMA STANBURY. The special vaunted courtesy of this letter consisted, no doubt, in the expression of respect which it contained, and in that declaration of affection with which it terminated. The epithet was one which Miss Stanbury would by no means use promiscuously in writing to her nearest relatives. She had not intended to use it when she commenced her letter to Priscilla. But the respect of which she had spoken had glowed, and had warmed itself into something of temporary love; and feeling at the moment that she was an affectionate aunt, Miss Stanbury had so put herself down in her letter. Having done such a deed she felt that Dorothy, though Dorothy knew nothing about it, ought in her gratitude to listen patiently to anything that she might now choose to say against Priscilla. But Dorothy was in truth very miserable, and in her misery wrote a long letter that afternoon to her mother,--which, however, it will not be necessary to place entire among the Stanbury records,--begging that she might be informed as to the true circumstances of the case. She did not say a word of censure in regard either to her mother or sister; but she expressed an opinion in the mildest words which she could use, that if anything had happened which had compromised their names since their residence at the Clock House, she, Dorothy, had better go home and join them. The meaning of which was that it would not become her to remain in the house in the Close, if the house in the Close would be disgraced by her presence. Poor Dorothy had taught herself to think that the iniquity of roaring lions spread itself very widely. In the afternoon she made some such proposition to her aunt in ambiguous terms. "Go home!" said Miss Stanbury. "Now?" "If you think it best, Aunt Stanbury." "And put yourself in the middle of all this iniquity and abomination! I don't suppose you want to know the woman?" "No, indeed!" "Or the man?" "Oh, Aunt Stanbury!" "It's my belief that no decent gentleman in Exeter would look at you again if you were to go and live among them at Nuncombe Putney while all this is going on. No, no. Let one of you be saved out of it, at least." Aunt Stanbury had more than once made use of expressions which brought the faintest touch of gentle pink up to her niece's cheeks. We must do Dorothy the justice of saying that she had never dreamed of being looked at by any gentleman, whether decent or indecent. Her life at Nuncombe Putney had been of such a nature, that though she knew that other girls were looked at, and even made love to, and that they got married and had children, no dim vision of such a career for herself had ever presented itself to her eyes. She had known very well that her mother and sister and herself were people apart,--ladies, and yet so extremely poor, that they could only maintain their rank by the most rigid seclusion. To live, and work unseen, was what the world had ordained for her. Then her call to Exeter had come upon her, and she had conceived that she was henceforth to be the humble companion of a very imperious old aunt. Her aunt, indeed, was imperious, but did not seem to require humility in her companion. All the good things that were eaten and drunk were divided between them with the strictest impartiality. Dorothy's cushion and hassock in the church and in the cathedral were the same as her aunt's. Her bed-room was made very comfortable for her. Her aunt never gave her any orders before company, and always spoke of her before the servants as one whom they were to obey and respect. Gradually Dorothy came to understand the meaning of this;--but her aunt would sometimes say things about young men which she did not quite understand. Could it be that her aunt supposed that any young man would come and wish to marry her,--her, Dorothy Stanbury? She herself had not quite so strong an aversion to men in general as that which Priscilla felt, but she had not as yet found that any of those whom she had seen at Exeter were peculiarly agreeable to her. Before she went to bed that night her aunt said a word to her which startled her more than she had ever been startled before. On that evening Miss Stanbury had a few friends to drink tea with her. There were Mr. and Mrs. Crumbie, and Mrs. MacHugh of course, and the Cheritons from Alphington, and the Miss Apjohns from Helion Villa, and old Mr. Powel all the way from Haldon, and two of the Wrights from their house in the Northernhay, and Mr. Gibson;--but the Miss Frenches from Heavitree were not there. "Why don't you have the Miss Frenches, aunt?" Dorothy had asked. "Bother the Miss Frenches! I'm not bound to have them every time. There's Camilla has been and got herself a band-box on the back of her head a great deal bigger than the place inside where her brains ought to be." But the band-box at the back of Camilla French's head was not the sole cause of the omission of the two sisters from the list of Miss Stanbury's visitors on this occasion. The party went off very much as usual. There were two whist tables, for Miss Stanbury could not bear to cut out. At other houses than her own, when there was cutting out, it was quite understood that Miss Stanbury was to be allowed to keep her place. "I'll go away, and sit out there by myself, if you like," she would say. But she was never thus banished; and at her own house she usually contrived that there should be no system of banishment. She would play dummy whist, preferring it to the four-handed game; and, when hard driven, and with a meet opponent, would not even despise double-dummy. It was told of her and of Mrs. MacHugh that they had played double-dummy for a whole evening together; and they who were given to calumny had declared that the candles on that evening had been lighted very early. On the present occasion a great many sixpenny points were scored, and much tea and cake were consumed. Mr. Gibson never played whist,--nor did Dorothy. That young John Wright and Mary Cheriton should do nothing but talk to each other was a thing of course, as they were to be married in a month or two. Then there was Ida Cheriton, who could not very well be left at home; and Mr. Gibson made himself pleasant to Dorothy and Ida Cheriton, instead of making himself pleasant to the two Miss Frenches. Gentlemen in provincial towns quite understand that, from the nature of social circumstances in the provinces, they should always be ready to be pleasant at least to a pair at a time. At a few minutes before twelve they were all gone, and then came the shock. "Dolly, my dear, what do you think of Mr. Gibson?" "Think of him, Aunt Stanbury?" "Yes; think of him;--think of him. I suppose you know how to think?" "He seems to me always to preach very drawling sermons." "Oh, bother his sermons! I don't care anything about his sermons now. He is a very good clergyman, and the Dean thinks very much about him." "I am glad of that, Aunt Stanbury." Then came the shock. "Don't you think it would be a very good thing if you were to become Mrs. Gibson?" It may be presumed that Miss Stanbury had assured herself that she could not make progress with Dorothy by "beating about the bush." There was an inaptitude in her niece to comprehend the advantages of the situations, which made some direct explanation absolutely necessary. Dorothy stood half-smiling, half-crying, when she heard the proposition, her cheeks suffused with that pink colour, and with both her hands extended with surprise. "I've been thinking about it ever since you've been here," said Miss Stanbury. "I think he likes Miss French," said Dorothy, in a whisper. "Which of them? I don't believe he likes them at all. Maybe, if they go on long enough, they may be able to toss up for him. But I don't think it of him. Of course they're after him, but he'll be too wise for them. And he's more of a fool than I take him to be if he don't prefer you to them." Dorothy remained quite silent. To such an address as this it was impossible that she should reply a word. It was incredible to her that any man should prefer herself to either of the young women in question; but she was too much confounded for the expression even of her humility. "At any rate you're wholesome, and pleasant and modest," said Miss Stanbury. Dorothy did not quite like being told that she was wholesome; but, nevertheless, she was thankful to her aunt. "I'll tell you what it is," continued Miss Stanbury; "I hate all mysteries, especially with those I love. I've saved two thousand pounds, which I've put you down for in my will. Now, if you and he can make it up together, I'll give you the money at once. There's no knowing how often an old woman may alter her will; but when you've got a thing, you've got it. Mr. Gibson would know the meaning of a bird in the hand as well as anybody. Now those girls at Heavitree will never have above a few hundreds each, and not that while their mother lives." Dorothy made one little attempt at squeezing her aunt's hand, wishing to thank her aunt for this affectionate generosity; but she had hardly accomplished the squeeze, when she desisted, feeling strangely averse to any acknowledgment of such a boon as that which had been offered to her. "And now, good night, my dear. If I did not think you a very sensible young woman, I should not trust you by saying all this." Then they parted, and Dorothy soon found herself alone in her bedroom. To have a husband of her own, a perfect gentleman too, and a clergyman;--and to go to him with a fortune! She believed that two thousand pounds represented nearly a hundred a year. It was a large fortune in those parts,--according to her understanding of ladies' fortunes. And that she, the humblest of the humble, should be selected for so honourable a position! She had never quite known, quite understood as yet, whether she had made good her footing in her aunt's house in a manner pleasant to her aunt. More than once or twice she had spoken even of going back to her mother, and things had been said which had almost made her think that her aunt had been angry with her. But now, after a month or two of joint residence, her aunt was offering to her--two thousand pounds and a husband! But was it within her aunt's power to offer to her the husband? Mr. Gibson had always been very civil to her. She had spoken more to Mr. Gibson than to any other man in Exeter. But it had never occurred to her for a moment that Mr. Gibson had any special liking for her. Was it probable that he would ever entertain any feeling of that kind for her? It certainly had occurred to her before now that Mr. Gibson was sometimes bored by the Miss Frenches;--but then gentlemen do get bored by ladies. And at last she asked herself another question,--had she any special liking for Mr. Gibson? As far as she understood such matters everything was blank there. Thinking of that other question, she went to sleep. CHAPTER XXIII. COLONEL OSBORNE AND MR. BOZZLE RETURN TO LONDON. Hugh Stanbury went down on the Saturday, by the early express to Exeter, on his road to Lessboro'. He took his ticket through to Lessboro', not purposing to stay at Exeter; but, from the exigencies of the various trains, it was necessary that he should remain for half an hour at the Exeter Station. This took place on the Saturday, and Colonel Osborne's visit to the Clock House had been made on the Friday. Colonel Osborne had returned to Lessboro', had slept again at Mrs. Clegg's house, and returned to London on the Saturday. It so happened that he also was obliged to spend half an hour at the Exeter Station, and that his half-hour, and Hugh Stanbury's half-hour, were one and the same. They met, therefore, as a matter of course, upon the platform. Stanbury was the first to see the other, and he found that he must determine on the spur of the moment what he would say, and what he would do. He had received no direct commission from Trevelyan as to his meeting with Colonel Osborne. Trevelyan had declared that, as to the matter of quarrelling, he meant to retain the privilege of doing that for himself; but Stanbury had quite understood that this was only the vague expression of an angry man. The Colonel had taken a glass of sherry, and had lighted a cigar, and was quite comfortable,--having thrown aside, for a time, that consciousness of the futility of his journey which had perplexed him,--when Stanbury accosted him. "What! Mr. Stanbury,--how do you do? Fine day, isn't it? Are you going up or down?" "I'm going to see my own people at Nuncombe Putney, a village beyond Lessboro'," said Hugh. "Ah;--indeed." Colonel Osborne of course perceived at once that as this man was going to the house at which he had just been visiting, it would be better that he should himself explain what he had done. If he were to allow this mention of Nuncombe Putney to pass without saying that he himself had been there, he would be convicted of at least some purpose of secrecy in what he had been doing. "Very strange," said he; "I was at Nuncombe Putney myself yesterday." "I know you were," said Stanbury. "And how did you know it?" There had been a tone of anger in Stanbury's voice which Colonel Osborne had at once appreciated, and which made him assume a similar tone. As they spoke there was a man standing in a corner close by the bookstall, with his eye upon them, and that man was Bozzle, the ex-policeman,--who was doing his duty with sedulous activity by seeing "the Colonel" back to London. Now Bozzle did not know Hugh Stanbury, and was angry with himself that he should be so ignorant. It is the pride of a detective ex-policeman to know everybody that comes in his way. "Well, I had been so informed. My friend Trevelyan knew that you were there,--or that you were going there." "I don't care who knew that I was going there," said the Colonel. "I won't pretend to understand how that may be, Colonel Osborne; but I think you must be aware, after what took place in Curzon Street, that it would have been better that you should not have attempted to see Mrs. Trevelyan. Whether you have seen her I do not know." "What business is it of yours, Mr. Stanbury, whether I have seen that lady or not?" "Unhappily for me, her husband has made it my business." "Very unhappily for you, I should say." "And the lady is staying at my mother's house." "I presume the lady is not a prisoner in your mother's house, and that your mother's hospitality is not so restricted but that her guest may see an old friend under her roof." This Colonel Osborne said with an assumed look of almost righteous indignation, which was not at all lost upon Bozzle. They had returned back towards the bookstall, and Bozzle, with his eyes fixed on a copy of the "D. R." which he had just bought, was straining his ears to the utmost to catch what was being said. "You best know whether you have seen her or not." "I have seen her." "Then I shall take leave to tell you, Colonel Osborne, that you have acted in a most unfriendly way, and have done that which must tend to keep an affectionate husband apart from his wife." "Sir, I don't at all understand this kind of thing addressed to me. The father of the lady you are speaking of has been my most intimate friend for thirty years." After all, the Colonel was a mean man when he could take pride in his youth, and defend himself on the score of his age, in one and the same proceeding. "I have nothing further to say," replied Stanbury. "You have said too much already, Mr. Stanbury." "I think not, Colonel Osborne. You have, I fear, done an incredible deal of mischief by going to Nuncombe Putney; and, after all that you have heard on the subject, you must have known that it would be mischievous. I cannot understand how you can | dreamed | How many times the word 'dreamed' appears in the text? | 1 |
very great,--so great that in its first flush she could not restrain herself from exhibiting it to Dorothy. "Well,--well,--what do you think, Dolly?" "About what, aunt? I don't know who the letter is from." "Nobody writes to me now so constant as your sister Priscilla. The letter is from Priscilla. Colonel Osborne has been at the Clock House, after all. I knew that he would be there. I knew it! I knew it!" Dorothy, when she heard this, was dumbfounded. She had rested her defence of her mother and sister on the impossibility of any such visit being admitted. According to her lights the coming of Colonel Osborne, after all that had been said, would be like the coming of Lucifer himself. The Colonel was, to her imagination, a horrible roaring lion. She had no idea that the erratic manoeuvres of such a beast might be milder and more innocent than the wooing of any turtle-dove. She would have asked whether the roaring lion had gone away again, and, if so, whether he had taken his prey with him, were it not that she was too much frightened at the moment to ask any question. That her mother and sister should have been wilfully concerned in such iniquity was quite incredible to her, but yet she did not know how to defend them. "But are you quite sure of it, Aunt Stanbury? May there not be another mistake?" "No mistake this time, I think, my dear. Any way, Priscilla says that he is there." Now in this there was a mistake. Priscilla had said nothing of the kind. "You don't mean that he is staying at the Clock House, Aunt Stanbury?" "I don't know where he is now. I'm not his keeper. And, I'm glad to say, I'm not the lady's keeper either. Ah, me! It's a bad business. You can't touch pitch and not be defiled, my dear. If your mother wanted the Clock House, I would sooner have taken it for her myself than that all this should have happened,--for the family's sake." But Miss Stanbury, when she was alone, and when she had read her niece's three letters again and again, began to understand something of Priscilla's honesty, and began also to perceive that there might have been a great difficulty respecting the Colonel, for which neither her niece nor her sister-in-law could fairly be held to be responsible. It was perhaps the plainest characteristic of all the Stanburys that they were never wilfully dishonest. Ignorant, prejudiced, and passionate they might be. In her anger Miss Stanbury, of Exeter, could be almost malicious; and her niece at Nuncombe Putney was very like her aunt. Each could say most cruel things, most unjust things, when actuated by a mistaken consciousness of perfect right on her own side. But neither of them could lie,--even by silence. Let an error be brought home to either of them,--so as to be acknowledged at home,--and the error would be assuredly confessed aloud. And, indeed, with differences in the shades, Hugh and Dorothy were of the same nature. They were possessed of sweeter tempers than their aunt and sister, but they were filled with the same eager readiness to believe themselves to be right,--and to own themselves to others to be wrong, when they had been constrained to make such confession to themselves. The chances of life, and something probably of inner nature, had made Dorothy mild and obedient; whereas, in regard to Hugh, the circumstances of his life and disposition had made him obstinate and self-reliant. But in all was to be found the same belief in self,--which amounted almost to conceit,--the same warmth of affection, and the same love of justice. When Miss Stanbury had again perused the correspondence, and had come to see, dimly, how things had gone at Nuncombe Putney,--when the conviction came upon her mind that Priscilla had entertained a horror as to the coming of this Colonel equal to that which she herself had felt,--when her imagination painted to her all that her niece had suffered, her heart was softened somewhat. She had declared to Dorothy that pitch, if touched, would certainly defile; and she had, at first, intended to send the same opinion, couched in very forcible words, to her correspondents at the Clock House. They should not continue to go astray for want of being told that they were going astray. It must be acknowledged, too, that there was a certain amount of ignoble wrath in the bosom of Miss Stanbury because her sister-in-law had taken the Clock House. She had never been told, and had not even condescended to ask Dorothy, whether the house was taken and paid for by her nephew on behalf of his mother, or whether it was paid for by Mr. Trevelyan on behalf of his wife. In the latter case, Mrs. Stanbury would, she thought, be little more than an upper servant, or keeper,--as she expressed it to herself. Such an arrangement appeared to her to be quite disgraceful in a Stanbury; but yet she believed that such must be the existing arrangement, as she could not bring herself to conceive that Hugh Stanbury could keep such an establishment over his mother's head out of money earned by writing for a penny newspaper. There would be a triumph of democracy in this which would vanquish her altogether. She had, therefore, been anxious enough to trample on Priscilla and upon all the affairs of the Clock House; but yet she had been unable to ignore the nobility of Priscilla's truth, and having acknowledged it to herself she found herself compelled to acknowledge it aloud. She sat down to think in silence, and it was not till she had fortified herself by her first draught of beer, and till she had finished her first portion of bread and cheese, that she spoke. "I have written to your sister herself, this time," she said. "I don't know that I ever wrote a line to her before in my life." "Poor Priscilla!" Dorothy did not mean to be severe on her aunt, either in regard to the letters which had not been written, or to the one letter which now had been written. But Dorothy pitied her sister, whom she felt to be in trouble. "Well; I don't know about her being so poor. Priscilla, I'll be bound, thinks as well of herself as any of us do." "She'd cut her fingers off before she'd mean to do wrong," said Dorothy. "But what does that come to? What's the good of that? It isn't meaning to do right that will save us. For aught I know, the Radicals may mean to do right. Mr. Beales means to do right--perhaps." "But, aunt,--if everybody did the best they could?" "Tush, my dear! you are getting beyond your depth. There are such things still, thank God! as spiritual pastors and masters. Entrust yourself to them. Do what they think right." Now if aught were known in Exeter of Miss Stanbury, this was known,--that if any clergyman volunteered to give to her, unasked and uninvited, counsel, either ghostly or bodily, that clergyman would be sent from her presence with a wigging which he would not soon forget. The thing had been tried more than once, and the wigging had been complete. There was no more attentive listener in church than Miss Stanbury; and she would, now and again, appeal to a clergyman on some knotty point. But for the ordinary authority of spiritual pastors and masters she shewed more of abstract reverence than of practical obedience. "I'm sure Priscilla does the best she can," said Dorothy, going back to the old subject. "Ah,--well,--yes. What I want to say about Priscilla is this. It is a thousand pities she is so obstinate, so pig-headed, so certain that she can manage everything for herself better than anybody else can for her." Miss Stanbury was striving to say something good of her niece, but found the task to be difficult and distasteful to her. "She has managed for mamma ever so many years; and since she took it we have hardly ever been in debt," said Dorothy. "She'll do all that, I don't doubt. I don't suppose she cares much for ribbons and false hair for herself." "Who? Priscilla! The idea of Priscilla with false hair!" "I dare say not;--I dare say not. I do not think she'd spend her mother's money on things of that kind." "Aunt Stanbury, you don't know her." "Ah; very well. Perhaps I don't. But, come, my dear, you are very hard upon me, and very anxious to take your sister's part. And what is it all about? I've just written to her as civil a letter as one woman ever wrote to another. And if I had chosen, I could have,--could have,--h--m--m." Miss Stanbury, as she hesitated for words in which to complete her sentence, revelled in the strength of the vituperation which she could have poured upon her niece's head, had she chosen to write her last letter about Colonel Osborne in her severe strain. "If you have written kindly to her, I am so much obliged to you," said Dorothy. "The truth is, Priscilla has meant to be right. Meaning won't go for much when the account is taken, unless the meaning comes from a proper source. But the poor girl has done as well as she has known how. I believe it is Hugh's fault more than anybody else's." This accusation was not pleasant to Dorothy, but she was too intent just now on Priscilla's case to defend her brother. "That man never ought to have been there; and that woman never ought to have been there. There cannot be a doubt about that. If Priscilla were sitting there opposite to me, she would own as much. I am sure she would." Miss Stanbury was quite right if she meant to assert that Priscilla had owned as much to herself. "And because I think so, I am willing to forgive her part in the matter. To me, personally, she has always been rude,--most uncourteous,--and,--and,--and unlike a younger woman to an older one, and an aunt, and all that. I suppose it is because she hates me." "Oh, no, Aunt Stanbury!" "My dear, I suppose it is. Why else should she treat me in such a way? But I do believe of her that she would rather eat an honest, dry crust, than dishonest cake and ale." "She would rather starve than pick up a crumb that was dishonest," said Dorothy, fairly bursting out into tears. "I believe it. I do believe it. There; what more can I say? Clock House, indeed! What matter what house you live in, so that you can pay the rent of it honestly?" "But the rent is paid--honestly," said Dorothy, amidst her sobs. "It's paid, I don't doubt. I dare say the woman's husband and your brother see to that among them. Oh, that my boy, Hugh, as he used to be, should have brought us all to this! But there's no knowing what they won't do among them. Reform, indeed! Murder, sacrilege, adultery, treason, atheism;--that's what Reform means; besides every kind of nastiness under the sun." In which latter category Miss Stanbury intended especially to include bad printer's ink, and paper made of straw. The reader may as well see the letter which was as civil a letter as ever one woman wrote to another, so that the collection of the Stanbury correspondence may be made perfect. The Close, August 6, 186--. MY DEAR NIECE, Your letter has not astonished me nearly as much as you expected it would. I am an older woman than you, and, though you will not believe it, I have seen more of the world. I knew that the gentleman would come after the lady. Such gentlemen always do go after their ladies. As for yourself, I can see all that you have done, and pretty nearly hear all that you have said, as plain as a pike-staff. I do you the credit of believing that the plan is none of your making. I know who made the plan, and a very bad plan it is. As to my former letters and the other man, I understand all about it. You were very angry that I should accuse you of having this man at the house; and you were right to be angry. I respect you for having been angry. But what does all that say as to his coming,--now that he has come? If you will consent to take an old woman's advice, get rid of the whole boiling of them. I say it in firm love and friendship, for I am,-- Your affectionate aunt, JEMIMA STANBURY. The special vaunted courtesy of this letter consisted, no doubt, in the expression of respect which it contained, and in that declaration of affection with which it terminated. The epithet was one which Miss Stanbury would by no means use promiscuously in writing to her nearest relatives. She had not intended to use it when she commenced her letter to Priscilla. But the respect of which she had spoken had glowed, and had warmed itself into something of temporary love; and feeling at the moment that she was an affectionate aunt, Miss Stanbury had so put herself down in her letter. Having done such a deed she felt that Dorothy, though Dorothy knew nothing about it, ought in her gratitude to listen patiently to anything that she might now choose to say against Priscilla. But Dorothy was in truth very miserable, and in her misery wrote a long letter that afternoon to her mother,--which, however, it will not be necessary to place entire among the Stanbury records,--begging that she might be informed as to the true circumstances of the case. She did not say a word of censure in regard either to her mother or sister; but she expressed an opinion in the mildest words which she could use, that if anything had happened which had compromised their names since their residence at the Clock House, she, Dorothy, had better go home and join them. The meaning of which was that it would not become her to remain in the house in the Close, if the house in the Close would be disgraced by her presence. Poor Dorothy had taught herself to think that the iniquity of roaring lions spread itself very widely. In the afternoon she made some such proposition to her aunt in ambiguous terms. "Go home!" said Miss Stanbury. "Now?" "If you think it best, Aunt Stanbury." "And put yourself in the middle of all this iniquity and abomination! I don't suppose you want to know the woman?" "No, indeed!" "Or the man?" "Oh, Aunt Stanbury!" "It's my belief that no decent gentleman in Exeter would look at you again if you were to go and live among them at Nuncombe Putney while all this is going on. No, no. Let one of you be saved out of it, at least." Aunt Stanbury had more than once made use of expressions which brought the faintest touch of gentle pink up to her niece's cheeks. We must do Dorothy the justice of saying that she had never dreamed of being looked at by any gentleman, whether decent or indecent. Her life at Nuncombe Putney had been of such a nature, that though she knew that other girls were looked at, and even made love to, and that they got married and had children, no dim vision of such a career for herself had ever presented itself to her eyes. She had known very well that her mother and sister and herself were people apart,--ladies, and yet so extremely poor, that they could only maintain their rank by the most rigid seclusion. To live, and work unseen, was what the world had ordained for her. Then her call to Exeter had come upon her, and she had conceived that she was henceforth to be the humble companion of a very imperious old aunt. Her aunt, indeed, was imperious, but did not seem to require humility in her companion. All the good things that were eaten and drunk were divided between them with the strictest impartiality. Dorothy's cushion and hassock in the church and in the cathedral were the same as her aunt's. Her bed-room was made very comfortable for her. Her aunt never gave her any orders before company, and always spoke of her before the servants as one whom they were to obey and respect. Gradually Dorothy came to understand the meaning of this;--but her aunt would sometimes say things about young men which she did not quite understand. Could it be that her aunt supposed that any young man would come and wish to marry her,--her, Dorothy Stanbury? She herself had not quite so strong an aversion to men in general as that which Priscilla felt, but she had not as yet found that any of those whom she had seen at Exeter were peculiarly agreeable to her. Before she went to bed that night her aunt said a word to her which startled her more than she had ever been startled before. On that evening Miss Stanbury had a few friends to drink tea with her. There were Mr. and Mrs. Crumbie, and Mrs. MacHugh of course, and the Cheritons from Alphington, and the Miss Apjohns from Helion Villa, and old Mr. Powel all the way from Haldon, and two of the Wrights from their house in the Northernhay, and Mr. Gibson;--but the Miss Frenches from Heavitree were not there. "Why don't you have the Miss Frenches, aunt?" Dorothy had asked. "Bother the Miss Frenches! I'm not bound to have them every time. There's Camilla has been and got herself a band-box on the back of her head a great deal bigger than the place inside where her brains ought to be." But the band-box at the back of Camilla French's head was not the sole cause of the omission of the two sisters from the list of Miss Stanbury's visitors on this occasion. The party went off very much as usual. There were two whist tables, for Miss Stanbury could not bear to cut out. At other houses than her own, when there was cutting out, it was quite understood that Miss Stanbury was to be allowed to keep her place. "I'll go away, and sit out there by myself, if you like," she would say. But she was never thus banished; and at her own house she usually contrived that there should be no system of banishment. She would play dummy whist, preferring it to the four-handed game; and, when hard driven, and with a meet opponent, would not even despise double-dummy. It was told of her and of Mrs. MacHugh that they had played double-dummy for a whole evening together; and they who were given to calumny had declared that the candles on that evening had been lighted very early. On the present occasion a great many sixpenny points were scored, and much tea and cake were consumed. Mr. Gibson never played whist,--nor did Dorothy. That young John Wright and Mary Cheriton should do nothing but talk to each other was a thing of course, as they were to be married in a month or two. Then there was Ida Cheriton, who could not very well be left at home; and Mr. Gibson made himself pleasant to Dorothy and Ida Cheriton, instead of making himself pleasant to the two Miss Frenches. Gentlemen in provincial towns quite understand that, from the nature of social circumstances in the provinces, they should always be ready to be pleasant at least to a pair at a time. At a few minutes before twelve they were all gone, and then came the shock. "Dolly, my dear, what do you think of Mr. Gibson?" "Think of him, Aunt Stanbury?" "Yes; think of him;--think of him. I suppose you know how to think?" "He seems to me always to preach very drawling sermons." "Oh, bother his sermons! I don't care anything about his sermons now. He is a very good clergyman, and the Dean thinks very much about him." "I am glad of that, Aunt Stanbury." Then came the shock. "Don't you think it would be a very good thing if you were to become Mrs. Gibson?" It may be presumed that Miss Stanbury had assured herself that she could not make progress with Dorothy by "beating about the bush." There was an inaptitude in her niece to comprehend the advantages of the situations, which made some direct explanation absolutely necessary. Dorothy stood half-smiling, half-crying, when she heard the proposition, her cheeks suffused with that pink colour, and with both her hands extended with surprise. "I've been thinking about it ever since you've been here," said Miss Stanbury. "I think he likes Miss French," said Dorothy, in a whisper. "Which of them? I don't believe he likes them at all. Maybe, if they go on long enough, they may be able to toss up for him. But I don't think it of him. Of course they're after him, but he'll be too wise for them. And he's more of a fool than I take him to be if he don't prefer you to them." Dorothy remained quite silent. To such an address as this it was impossible that she should reply a word. It was incredible to her that any man should prefer herself to either of the young women in question; but she was too much confounded for the expression even of her humility. "At any rate you're wholesome, and pleasant and modest," said Miss Stanbury. Dorothy did not quite like being told that she was wholesome; but, nevertheless, she was thankful to her aunt. "I'll tell you what it is," continued Miss Stanbury; "I hate all mysteries, especially with those I love. I've saved two thousand pounds, which I've put you down for in my will. Now, if you and he can make it up together, I'll give you the money at once. There's no knowing how often an old woman may alter her will; but when you've got a thing, you've got it. Mr. Gibson would know the meaning of a bird in the hand as well as anybody. Now those girls at Heavitree will never have above a few hundreds each, and not that while their mother lives." Dorothy made one little attempt at squeezing her aunt's hand, wishing to thank her aunt for this affectionate generosity; but she had hardly accomplished the squeeze, when she desisted, feeling strangely averse to any acknowledgment of such a boon as that which had been offered to her. "And now, good night, my dear. If I did not think you a very sensible young woman, I should not trust you by saying all this." Then they parted, and Dorothy soon found herself alone in her bedroom. To have a husband of her own, a perfect gentleman too, and a clergyman;--and to go to him with a fortune! She believed that two thousand pounds represented nearly a hundred a year. It was a large fortune in those parts,--according to her understanding of ladies' fortunes. And that she, the humblest of the humble, should be selected for so honourable a position! She had never quite known, quite understood as yet, whether she had made good her footing in her aunt's house in a manner pleasant to her aunt. More than once or twice she had spoken even of going back to her mother, and things had been said which had almost made her think that her aunt had been angry with her. But now, after a month or two of joint residence, her aunt was offering to her--two thousand pounds and a husband! But was it within her aunt's power to offer to her the husband? Mr. Gibson had always been very civil to her. She had spoken more to Mr. Gibson than to any other man in Exeter. But it had never occurred to her for a moment that Mr. Gibson had any special liking for her. Was it probable that he would ever entertain any feeling of that kind for her? It certainly had occurred to her before now that Mr. Gibson was sometimes bored by the Miss Frenches;--but then gentlemen do get bored by ladies. And at last she asked herself another question,--had she any special liking for Mr. Gibson? As far as she understood such matters everything was blank there. Thinking of that other question, she went to sleep. CHAPTER XXIII. COLONEL OSBORNE AND MR. BOZZLE RETURN TO LONDON. Hugh Stanbury went down on the Saturday, by the early express to Exeter, on his road to Lessboro'. He took his ticket through to Lessboro', not purposing to stay at Exeter; but, from the exigencies of the various trains, it was necessary that he should remain for half an hour at the Exeter Station. This took place on the Saturday, and Colonel Osborne's visit to the Clock House had been made on the Friday. Colonel Osborne had returned to Lessboro', had slept again at Mrs. Clegg's house, and returned to London on the Saturday. It so happened that he also was obliged to spend half an hour at the Exeter Station, and that his half-hour, and Hugh Stanbury's half-hour, were one and the same. They met, therefore, as a matter of course, upon the platform. Stanbury was the first to see the other, and he found that he must determine on the spur of the moment what he would say, and what he would do. He had received no direct commission from Trevelyan as to his meeting with Colonel Osborne. Trevelyan had declared that, as to the matter of quarrelling, he meant to retain the privilege of doing that for himself; but Stanbury had quite understood that this was only the vague expression of an angry man. The Colonel had taken a glass of sherry, and had lighted a cigar, and was quite comfortable,--having thrown aside, for a time, that consciousness of the futility of his journey which had perplexed him,--when Stanbury accosted him. "What! Mr. Stanbury,--how do you do? Fine day, isn't it? Are you going up or down?" "I'm going to see my own people at Nuncombe Putney, a village beyond Lessboro'," said Hugh. "Ah;--indeed." Colonel Osborne of course perceived at once that as this man was going to the house at which he had just been visiting, it would be better that he should himself explain what he had done. If he were to allow this mention of Nuncombe Putney to pass without saying that he himself had been there, he would be convicted of at least some purpose of secrecy in what he had been doing. "Very strange," said he; "I was at Nuncombe Putney myself yesterday." "I know you were," said Stanbury. "And how did you know it?" There had been a tone of anger in Stanbury's voice which Colonel Osborne had at once appreciated, and which made him assume a similar tone. As they spoke there was a man standing in a corner close by the bookstall, with his eye upon them, and that man was Bozzle, the ex-policeman,--who was doing his duty with sedulous activity by seeing "the Colonel" back to London. Now Bozzle did not know Hugh Stanbury, and was angry with himself that he should be so ignorant. It is the pride of a detective ex-policeman to know everybody that comes in his way. "Well, I had been so informed. My friend Trevelyan knew that you were there,--or that you were going there." "I don't care who knew that I was going there," said the Colonel. "I won't pretend to understand how that may be, Colonel Osborne; but I think you must be aware, after what took place in Curzon Street, that it would have been better that you should not have attempted to see Mrs. Trevelyan. Whether you have seen her I do not know." "What business is it of yours, Mr. Stanbury, whether I have seen that lady or not?" "Unhappily for me, her husband has made it my business." "Very unhappily for you, I should say." "And the lady is staying at my mother's house." "I presume the lady is not a prisoner in your mother's house, and that your mother's hospitality is not so restricted but that her guest may see an old friend under her roof." This Colonel Osborne said with an assumed look of almost righteous indignation, which was not at all lost upon Bozzle. They had returned back towards the bookstall, and Bozzle, with his eyes fixed on a copy of the "D. R." which he had just bought, was straining his ears to the utmost to catch what was being said. "You best know whether you have seen her or not." "I have seen her." "Then I shall take leave to tell you, Colonel Osborne, that you have acted in a most unfriendly way, and have done that which must tend to keep an affectionate husband apart from his wife." "Sir, I don't at all understand this kind of thing addressed to me. The father of the lady you are speaking of has been my most intimate friend for thirty years." After all, the Colonel was a mean man when he could take pride in his youth, and defend himself on the score of his age, in one and the same proceeding. "I have nothing further to say," replied Stanbury. "You have said too much already, Mr. Stanbury." "I think not, Colonel Osborne. You have, I fear, done an incredible deal of mischief by going to Nuncombe Putney; and, after all that you have heard on the subject, you must have known that it would be mischievous. I cannot understand how you can | swelling | How many times the word 'swelling' appears in the text? | 0 |
very great,--so great that in its first flush she could not restrain herself from exhibiting it to Dorothy. "Well,--well,--what do you think, Dolly?" "About what, aunt? I don't know who the letter is from." "Nobody writes to me now so constant as your sister Priscilla. The letter is from Priscilla. Colonel Osborne has been at the Clock House, after all. I knew that he would be there. I knew it! I knew it!" Dorothy, when she heard this, was dumbfounded. She had rested her defence of her mother and sister on the impossibility of any such visit being admitted. According to her lights the coming of Colonel Osborne, after all that had been said, would be like the coming of Lucifer himself. The Colonel was, to her imagination, a horrible roaring lion. She had no idea that the erratic manoeuvres of such a beast might be milder and more innocent than the wooing of any turtle-dove. She would have asked whether the roaring lion had gone away again, and, if so, whether he had taken his prey with him, were it not that she was too much frightened at the moment to ask any question. That her mother and sister should have been wilfully concerned in such iniquity was quite incredible to her, but yet she did not know how to defend them. "But are you quite sure of it, Aunt Stanbury? May there not be another mistake?" "No mistake this time, I think, my dear. Any way, Priscilla says that he is there." Now in this there was a mistake. Priscilla had said nothing of the kind. "You don't mean that he is staying at the Clock House, Aunt Stanbury?" "I don't know where he is now. I'm not his keeper. And, I'm glad to say, I'm not the lady's keeper either. Ah, me! It's a bad business. You can't touch pitch and not be defiled, my dear. If your mother wanted the Clock House, I would sooner have taken it for her myself than that all this should have happened,--for the family's sake." But Miss Stanbury, when she was alone, and when she had read her niece's three letters again and again, began to understand something of Priscilla's honesty, and began also to perceive that there might have been a great difficulty respecting the Colonel, for which neither her niece nor her sister-in-law could fairly be held to be responsible. It was perhaps the plainest characteristic of all the Stanburys that they were never wilfully dishonest. Ignorant, prejudiced, and passionate they might be. In her anger Miss Stanbury, of Exeter, could be almost malicious; and her niece at Nuncombe Putney was very like her aunt. Each could say most cruel things, most unjust things, when actuated by a mistaken consciousness of perfect right on her own side. But neither of them could lie,--even by silence. Let an error be brought home to either of them,--so as to be acknowledged at home,--and the error would be assuredly confessed aloud. And, indeed, with differences in the shades, Hugh and Dorothy were of the same nature. They were possessed of sweeter tempers than their aunt and sister, but they were filled with the same eager readiness to believe themselves to be right,--and to own themselves to others to be wrong, when they had been constrained to make such confession to themselves. The chances of life, and something probably of inner nature, had made Dorothy mild and obedient; whereas, in regard to Hugh, the circumstances of his life and disposition had made him obstinate and self-reliant. But in all was to be found the same belief in self,--which amounted almost to conceit,--the same warmth of affection, and the same love of justice. When Miss Stanbury had again perused the correspondence, and had come to see, dimly, how things had gone at Nuncombe Putney,--when the conviction came upon her mind that Priscilla had entertained a horror as to the coming of this Colonel equal to that which she herself had felt,--when her imagination painted to her all that her niece had suffered, her heart was softened somewhat. She had declared to Dorothy that pitch, if touched, would certainly defile; and she had, at first, intended to send the same opinion, couched in very forcible words, to her correspondents at the Clock House. They should not continue to go astray for want of being told that they were going astray. It must be acknowledged, too, that there was a certain amount of ignoble wrath in the bosom of Miss Stanbury because her sister-in-law had taken the Clock House. She had never been told, and had not even condescended to ask Dorothy, whether the house was taken and paid for by her nephew on behalf of his mother, or whether it was paid for by Mr. Trevelyan on behalf of his wife. In the latter case, Mrs. Stanbury would, she thought, be little more than an upper servant, or keeper,--as she expressed it to herself. Such an arrangement appeared to her to be quite disgraceful in a Stanbury; but yet she believed that such must be the existing arrangement, as she could not bring herself to conceive that Hugh Stanbury could keep such an establishment over his mother's head out of money earned by writing for a penny newspaper. There would be a triumph of democracy in this which would vanquish her altogether. She had, therefore, been anxious enough to trample on Priscilla and upon all the affairs of the Clock House; but yet she had been unable to ignore the nobility of Priscilla's truth, and having acknowledged it to herself she found herself compelled to acknowledge it aloud. She sat down to think in silence, and it was not till she had fortified herself by her first draught of beer, and till she had finished her first portion of bread and cheese, that she spoke. "I have written to your sister herself, this time," she said. "I don't know that I ever wrote a line to her before in my life." "Poor Priscilla!" Dorothy did not mean to be severe on her aunt, either in regard to the letters which had not been written, or to the one letter which now had been written. But Dorothy pitied her sister, whom she felt to be in trouble. "Well; I don't know about her being so poor. Priscilla, I'll be bound, thinks as well of herself as any of us do." "She'd cut her fingers off before she'd mean to do wrong," said Dorothy. "But what does that come to? What's the good of that? It isn't meaning to do right that will save us. For aught I know, the Radicals may mean to do right. Mr. Beales means to do right--perhaps." "But, aunt,--if everybody did the best they could?" "Tush, my dear! you are getting beyond your depth. There are such things still, thank God! as spiritual pastors and masters. Entrust yourself to them. Do what they think right." Now if aught were known in Exeter of Miss Stanbury, this was known,--that if any clergyman volunteered to give to her, unasked and uninvited, counsel, either ghostly or bodily, that clergyman would be sent from her presence with a wigging which he would not soon forget. The thing had been tried more than once, and the wigging had been complete. There was no more attentive listener in church than Miss Stanbury; and she would, now and again, appeal to a clergyman on some knotty point. But for the ordinary authority of spiritual pastors and masters she shewed more of abstract reverence than of practical obedience. "I'm sure Priscilla does the best she can," said Dorothy, going back to the old subject. "Ah,--well,--yes. What I want to say about Priscilla is this. It is a thousand pities she is so obstinate, so pig-headed, so certain that she can manage everything for herself better than anybody else can for her." Miss Stanbury was striving to say something good of her niece, but found the task to be difficult and distasteful to her. "She has managed for mamma ever so many years; and since she took it we have hardly ever been in debt," said Dorothy. "She'll do all that, I don't doubt. I don't suppose she cares much for ribbons and false hair for herself." "Who? Priscilla! The idea of Priscilla with false hair!" "I dare say not;--I dare say not. I do not think she'd spend her mother's money on things of that kind." "Aunt Stanbury, you don't know her." "Ah; very well. Perhaps I don't. But, come, my dear, you are very hard upon me, and very anxious to take your sister's part. And what is it all about? I've just written to her as civil a letter as one woman ever wrote to another. And if I had chosen, I could have,--could have,--h--m--m." Miss Stanbury, as she hesitated for words in which to complete her sentence, revelled in the strength of the vituperation which she could have poured upon her niece's head, had she chosen to write her last letter about Colonel Osborne in her severe strain. "If you have written kindly to her, I am so much obliged to you," said Dorothy. "The truth is, Priscilla has meant to be right. Meaning won't go for much when the account is taken, unless the meaning comes from a proper source. But the poor girl has done as well as she has known how. I believe it is Hugh's fault more than anybody else's." This accusation was not pleasant to Dorothy, but she was too intent just now on Priscilla's case to defend her brother. "That man never ought to have been there; and that woman never ought to have been there. There cannot be a doubt about that. If Priscilla were sitting there opposite to me, she would own as much. I am sure she would." Miss Stanbury was quite right if she meant to assert that Priscilla had owned as much to herself. "And because I think so, I am willing to forgive her part in the matter. To me, personally, she has always been rude,--most uncourteous,--and,--and,--and unlike a younger woman to an older one, and an aunt, and all that. I suppose it is because she hates me." "Oh, no, Aunt Stanbury!" "My dear, I suppose it is. Why else should she treat me in such a way? But I do believe of her that she would rather eat an honest, dry crust, than dishonest cake and ale." "She would rather starve than pick up a crumb that was dishonest," said Dorothy, fairly bursting out into tears. "I believe it. I do believe it. There; what more can I say? Clock House, indeed! What matter what house you live in, so that you can pay the rent of it honestly?" "But the rent is paid--honestly," said Dorothy, amidst her sobs. "It's paid, I don't doubt. I dare say the woman's husband and your brother see to that among them. Oh, that my boy, Hugh, as he used to be, should have brought us all to this! But there's no knowing what they won't do among them. Reform, indeed! Murder, sacrilege, adultery, treason, atheism;--that's what Reform means; besides every kind of nastiness under the sun." In which latter category Miss Stanbury intended especially to include bad printer's ink, and paper made of straw. The reader may as well see the letter which was as civil a letter as ever one woman wrote to another, so that the collection of the Stanbury correspondence may be made perfect. The Close, August 6, 186--. MY DEAR NIECE, Your letter has not astonished me nearly as much as you expected it would. I am an older woman than you, and, though you will not believe it, I have seen more of the world. I knew that the gentleman would come after the lady. Such gentlemen always do go after their ladies. As for yourself, I can see all that you have done, and pretty nearly hear all that you have said, as plain as a pike-staff. I do you the credit of believing that the plan is none of your making. I know who made the plan, and a very bad plan it is. As to my former letters and the other man, I understand all about it. You were very angry that I should accuse you of having this man at the house; and you were right to be angry. I respect you for having been angry. But what does all that say as to his coming,--now that he has come? If you will consent to take an old woman's advice, get rid of the whole boiling of them. I say it in firm love and friendship, for I am,-- Your affectionate aunt, JEMIMA STANBURY. The special vaunted courtesy of this letter consisted, no doubt, in the expression of respect which it contained, and in that declaration of affection with which it terminated. The epithet was one which Miss Stanbury would by no means use promiscuously in writing to her nearest relatives. She had not intended to use it when she commenced her letter to Priscilla. But the respect of which she had spoken had glowed, and had warmed itself into something of temporary love; and feeling at the moment that she was an affectionate aunt, Miss Stanbury had so put herself down in her letter. Having done such a deed she felt that Dorothy, though Dorothy knew nothing about it, ought in her gratitude to listen patiently to anything that she might now choose to say against Priscilla. But Dorothy was in truth very miserable, and in her misery wrote a long letter that afternoon to her mother,--which, however, it will not be necessary to place entire among the Stanbury records,--begging that she might be informed as to the true circumstances of the case. She did not say a word of censure in regard either to her mother or sister; but she expressed an opinion in the mildest words which she could use, that if anything had happened which had compromised their names since their residence at the Clock House, she, Dorothy, had better go home and join them. The meaning of which was that it would not become her to remain in the house in the Close, if the house in the Close would be disgraced by her presence. Poor Dorothy had taught herself to think that the iniquity of roaring lions spread itself very widely. In the afternoon she made some such proposition to her aunt in ambiguous terms. "Go home!" said Miss Stanbury. "Now?" "If you think it best, Aunt Stanbury." "And put yourself in the middle of all this iniquity and abomination! I don't suppose you want to know the woman?" "No, indeed!" "Or the man?" "Oh, Aunt Stanbury!" "It's my belief that no decent gentleman in Exeter would look at you again if you were to go and live among them at Nuncombe Putney while all this is going on. No, no. Let one of you be saved out of it, at least." Aunt Stanbury had more than once made use of expressions which brought the faintest touch of gentle pink up to her niece's cheeks. We must do Dorothy the justice of saying that she had never dreamed of being looked at by any gentleman, whether decent or indecent. Her life at Nuncombe Putney had been of such a nature, that though she knew that other girls were looked at, and even made love to, and that they got married and had children, no dim vision of such a career for herself had ever presented itself to her eyes. She had known very well that her mother and sister and herself were people apart,--ladies, and yet so extremely poor, that they could only maintain their rank by the most rigid seclusion. To live, and work unseen, was what the world had ordained for her. Then her call to Exeter had come upon her, and she had conceived that she was henceforth to be the humble companion of a very imperious old aunt. Her aunt, indeed, was imperious, but did not seem to require humility in her companion. All the good things that were eaten and drunk were divided between them with the strictest impartiality. Dorothy's cushion and hassock in the church and in the cathedral were the same as her aunt's. Her bed-room was made very comfortable for her. Her aunt never gave her any orders before company, and always spoke of her before the servants as one whom they were to obey and respect. Gradually Dorothy came to understand the meaning of this;--but her aunt would sometimes say things about young men which she did not quite understand. Could it be that her aunt supposed that any young man would come and wish to marry her,--her, Dorothy Stanbury? She herself had not quite so strong an aversion to men in general as that which Priscilla felt, but she had not as yet found that any of those whom she had seen at Exeter were peculiarly agreeable to her. Before she went to bed that night her aunt said a word to her which startled her more than she had ever been startled before. On that evening Miss Stanbury had a few friends to drink tea with her. There were Mr. and Mrs. Crumbie, and Mrs. MacHugh of course, and the Cheritons from Alphington, and the Miss Apjohns from Helion Villa, and old Mr. Powel all the way from Haldon, and two of the Wrights from their house in the Northernhay, and Mr. Gibson;--but the Miss Frenches from Heavitree were not there. "Why don't you have the Miss Frenches, aunt?" Dorothy had asked. "Bother the Miss Frenches! I'm not bound to have them every time. There's Camilla has been and got herself a band-box on the back of her head a great deal bigger than the place inside where her brains ought to be." But the band-box at the back of Camilla French's head was not the sole cause of the omission of the two sisters from the list of Miss Stanbury's visitors on this occasion. The party went off very much as usual. There were two whist tables, for Miss Stanbury could not bear to cut out. At other houses than her own, when there was cutting out, it was quite understood that Miss Stanbury was to be allowed to keep her place. "I'll go away, and sit out there by myself, if you like," she would say. But she was never thus banished; and at her own house she usually contrived that there should be no system of banishment. She would play dummy whist, preferring it to the four-handed game; and, when hard driven, and with a meet opponent, would not even despise double-dummy. It was told of her and of Mrs. MacHugh that they had played double-dummy for a whole evening together; and they who were given to calumny had declared that the candles on that evening had been lighted very early. On the present occasion a great many sixpenny points were scored, and much tea and cake were consumed. Mr. Gibson never played whist,--nor did Dorothy. That young John Wright and Mary Cheriton should do nothing but talk to each other was a thing of course, as they were to be married in a month or two. Then there was Ida Cheriton, who could not very well be left at home; and Mr. Gibson made himself pleasant to Dorothy and Ida Cheriton, instead of making himself pleasant to the two Miss Frenches. Gentlemen in provincial towns quite understand that, from the nature of social circumstances in the provinces, they should always be ready to be pleasant at least to a pair at a time. At a few minutes before twelve they were all gone, and then came the shock. "Dolly, my dear, what do you think of Mr. Gibson?" "Think of him, Aunt Stanbury?" "Yes; think of him;--think of him. I suppose you know how to think?" "He seems to me always to preach very drawling sermons." "Oh, bother his sermons! I don't care anything about his sermons now. He is a very good clergyman, and the Dean thinks very much about him." "I am glad of that, Aunt Stanbury." Then came the shock. "Don't you think it would be a very good thing if you were to become Mrs. Gibson?" It may be presumed that Miss Stanbury had assured herself that she could not make progress with Dorothy by "beating about the bush." There was an inaptitude in her niece to comprehend the advantages of the situations, which made some direct explanation absolutely necessary. Dorothy stood half-smiling, half-crying, when she heard the proposition, her cheeks suffused with that pink colour, and with both her hands extended with surprise. "I've been thinking about it ever since you've been here," said Miss Stanbury. "I think he likes Miss French," said Dorothy, in a whisper. "Which of them? I don't believe he likes them at all. Maybe, if they go on long enough, they may be able to toss up for him. But I don't think it of him. Of course they're after him, but he'll be too wise for them. And he's more of a fool than I take him to be if he don't prefer you to them." Dorothy remained quite silent. To such an address as this it was impossible that she should reply a word. It was incredible to her that any man should prefer herself to either of the young women in question; but she was too much confounded for the expression even of her humility. "At any rate you're wholesome, and pleasant and modest," said Miss Stanbury. Dorothy did not quite like being told that she was wholesome; but, nevertheless, she was thankful to her aunt. "I'll tell you what it is," continued Miss Stanbury; "I hate all mysteries, especially with those I love. I've saved two thousand pounds, which I've put you down for in my will. Now, if you and he can make it up together, I'll give you the money at once. There's no knowing how often an old woman may alter her will; but when you've got a thing, you've got it. Mr. Gibson would know the meaning of a bird in the hand as well as anybody. Now those girls at Heavitree will never have above a few hundreds each, and not that while their mother lives." Dorothy made one little attempt at squeezing her aunt's hand, wishing to thank her aunt for this affectionate generosity; but she had hardly accomplished the squeeze, when she desisted, feeling strangely averse to any acknowledgment of such a boon as that which had been offered to her. "And now, good night, my dear. If I did not think you a very sensible young woman, I should not trust you by saying all this." Then they parted, and Dorothy soon found herself alone in her bedroom. To have a husband of her own, a perfect gentleman too, and a clergyman;--and to go to him with a fortune! She believed that two thousand pounds represented nearly a hundred a year. It was a large fortune in those parts,--according to her understanding of ladies' fortunes. And that she, the humblest of the humble, should be selected for so honourable a position! She had never quite known, quite understood as yet, whether she had made good her footing in her aunt's house in a manner pleasant to her aunt. More than once or twice she had spoken even of going back to her mother, and things had been said which had almost made her think that her aunt had been angry with her. But now, after a month or two of joint residence, her aunt was offering to her--two thousand pounds and a husband! But was it within her aunt's power to offer to her the husband? Mr. Gibson had always been very civil to her. She had spoken more to Mr. Gibson than to any other man in Exeter. But it had never occurred to her for a moment that Mr. Gibson had any special liking for her. Was it probable that he would ever entertain any feeling of that kind for her? It certainly had occurred to her before now that Mr. Gibson was sometimes bored by the Miss Frenches;--but then gentlemen do get bored by ladies. And at last she asked herself another question,--had she any special liking for Mr. Gibson? As far as she understood such matters everything was blank there. Thinking of that other question, she went to sleep. CHAPTER XXIII. COLONEL OSBORNE AND MR. BOZZLE RETURN TO LONDON. Hugh Stanbury went down on the Saturday, by the early express to Exeter, on his road to Lessboro'. He took his ticket through to Lessboro', not purposing to stay at Exeter; but, from the exigencies of the various trains, it was necessary that he should remain for half an hour at the Exeter Station. This took place on the Saturday, and Colonel Osborne's visit to the Clock House had been made on the Friday. Colonel Osborne had returned to Lessboro', had slept again at Mrs. Clegg's house, and returned to London on the Saturday. It so happened that he also was obliged to spend half an hour at the Exeter Station, and that his half-hour, and Hugh Stanbury's half-hour, were one and the same. They met, therefore, as a matter of course, upon the platform. Stanbury was the first to see the other, and he found that he must determine on the spur of the moment what he would say, and what he would do. He had received no direct commission from Trevelyan as to his meeting with Colonel Osborne. Trevelyan had declared that, as to the matter of quarrelling, he meant to retain the privilege of doing that for himself; but Stanbury had quite understood that this was only the vague expression of an angry man. The Colonel had taken a glass of sherry, and had lighted a cigar, and was quite comfortable,--having thrown aside, for a time, that consciousness of the futility of his journey which had perplexed him,--when Stanbury accosted him. "What! Mr. Stanbury,--how do you do? Fine day, isn't it? Are you going up or down?" "I'm going to see my own people at Nuncombe Putney, a village beyond Lessboro'," said Hugh. "Ah;--indeed." Colonel Osborne of course perceived at once that as this man was going to the house at which he had just been visiting, it would be better that he should himself explain what he had done. If he were to allow this mention of Nuncombe Putney to pass without saying that he himself had been there, he would be convicted of at least some purpose of secrecy in what he had been doing. "Very strange," said he; "I was at Nuncombe Putney myself yesterday." "I know you were," said Stanbury. "And how did you know it?" There had been a tone of anger in Stanbury's voice which Colonel Osborne had at once appreciated, and which made him assume a similar tone. As they spoke there was a man standing in a corner close by the bookstall, with his eye upon them, and that man was Bozzle, the ex-policeman,--who was doing his duty with sedulous activity by seeing "the Colonel" back to London. Now Bozzle did not know Hugh Stanbury, and was angry with himself that he should be so ignorant. It is the pride of a detective ex-policeman to know everybody that comes in his way. "Well, I had been so informed. My friend Trevelyan knew that you were there,--or that you were going there." "I don't care who knew that I was going there," said the Colonel. "I won't pretend to understand how that may be, Colonel Osborne; but I think you must be aware, after what took place in Curzon Street, that it would have been better that you should not have attempted to see Mrs. Trevelyan. Whether you have seen her I do not know." "What business is it of yours, Mr. Stanbury, whether I have seen that lady or not?" "Unhappily for me, her husband has made it my business." "Very unhappily for you, I should say." "And the lady is staying at my mother's house." "I presume the lady is not a prisoner in your mother's house, and that your mother's hospitality is not so restricted but that her guest may see an old friend under her roof." This Colonel Osborne said with an assumed look of almost righteous indignation, which was not at all lost upon Bozzle. They had returned back towards the bookstall, and Bozzle, with his eyes fixed on a copy of the "D. R." which he had just bought, was straining his ears to the utmost to catch what was being said. "You best know whether you have seen her or not." "I have seen her." "Then I shall take leave to tell you, Colonel Osborne, that you have acted in a most unfriendly way, and have done that which must tend to keep an affectionate husband apart from his wife." "Sir, I don't at all understand this kind of thing addressed to me. The father of the lady you are speaking of has been my most intimate friend for thirty years." After all, the Colonel was a mean man when he could take pride in his youth, and defend himself on the score of his age, in one and the same proceeding. "I have nothing further to say," replied Stanbury. "You have said too much already, Mr. Stanbury." "I think not, Colonel Osborne. You have, I fear, done an incredible deal of mischief by going to Nuncombe Putney; and, after all that you have heard on the subject, you must have known that it would be mischievous. I cannot understand how you can | sacrilege | How many times the word 'sacrilege' appears in the text? | 1 |
very great,--so great that in its first flush she could not restrain herself from exhibiting it to Dorothy. "Well,--well,--what do you think, Dolly?" "About what, aunt? I don't know who the letter is from." "Nobody writes to me now so constant as your sister Priscilla. The letter is from Priscilla. Colonel Osborne has been at the Clock House, after all. I knew that he would be there. I knew it! I knew it!" Dorothy, when she heard this, was dumbfounded. She had rested her defence of her mother and sister on the impossibility of any such visit being admitted. According to her lights the coming of Colonel Osborne, after all that had been said, would be like the coming of Lucifer himself. The Colonel was, to her imagination, a horrible roaring lion. She had no idea that the erratic manoeuvres of such a beast might be milder and more innocent than the wooing of any turtle-dove. She would have asked whether the roaring lion had gone away again, and, if so, whether he had taken his prey with him, were it not that she was too much frightened at the moment to ask any question. That her mother and sister should have been wilfully concerned in such iniquity was quite incredible to her, but yet she did not know how to defend them. "But are you quite sure of it, Aunt Stanbury? May there not be another mistake?" "No mistake this time, I think, my dear. Any way, Priscilla says that he is there." Now in this there was a mistake. Priscilla had said nothing of the kind. "You don't mean that he is staying at the Clock House, Aunt Stanbury?" "I don't know where he is now. I'm not his keeper. And, I'm glad to say, I'm not the lady's keeper either. Ah, me! It's a bad business. You can't touch pitch and not be defiled, my dear. If your mother wanted the Clock House, I would sooner have taken it for her myself than that all this should have happened,--for the family's sake." But Miss Stanbury, when she was alone, and when she had read her niece's three letters again and again, began to understand something of Priscilla's honesty, and began also to perceive that there might have been a great difficulty respecting the Colonel, for which neither her niece nor her sister-in-law could fairly be held to be responsible. It was perhaps the plainest characteristic of all the Stanburys that they were never wilfully dishonest. Ignorant, prejudiced, and passionate they might be. In her anger Miss Stanbury, of Exeter, could be almost malicious; and her niece at Nuncombe Putney was very like her aunt. Each could say most cruel things, most unjust things, when actuated by a mistaken consciousness of perfect right on her own side. But neither of them could lie,--even by silence. Let an error be brought home to either of them,--so as to be acknowledged at home,--and the error would be assuredly confessed aloud. And, indeed, with differences in the shades, Hugh and Dorothy were of the same nature. They were possessed of sweeter tempers than their aunt and sister, but they were filled with the same eager readiness to believe themselves to be right,--and to own themselves to others to be wrong, when they had been constrained to make such confession to themselves. The chances of life, and something probably of inner nature, had made Dorothy mild and obedient; whereas, in regard to Hugh, the circumstances of his life and disposition had made him obstinate and self-reliant. But in all was to be found the same belief in self,--which amounted almost to conceit,--the same warmth of affection, and the same love of justice. When Miss Stanbury had again perused the correspondence, and had come to see, dimly, how things had gone at Nuncombe Putney,--when the conviction came upon her mind that Priscilla had entertained a horror as to the coming of this Colonel equal to that which she herself had felt,--when her imagination painted to her all that her niece had suffered, her heart was softened somewhat. She had declared to Dorothy that pitch, if touched, would certainly defile; and she had, at first, intended to send the same opinion, couched in very forcible words, to her correspondents at the Clock House. They should not continue to go astray for want of being told that they were going astray. It must be acknowledged, too, that there was a certain amount of ignoble wrath in the bosom of Miss Stanbury because her sister-in-law had taken the Clock House. She had never been told, and had not even condescended to ask Dorothy, whether the house was taken and paid for by her nephew on behalf of his mother, or whether it was paid for by Mr. Trevelyan on behalf of his wife. In the latter case, Mrs. Stanbury would, she thought, be little more than an upper servant, or keeper,--as she expressed it to herself. Such an arrangement appeared to her to be quite disgraceful in a Stanbury; but yet she believed that such must be the existing arrangement, as she could not bring herself to conceive that Hugh Stanbury could keep such an establishment over his mother's head out of money earned by writing for a penny newspaper. There would be a triumph of democracy in this which would vanquish her altogether. She had, therefore, been anxious enough to trample on Priscilla and upon all the affairs of the Clock House; but yet she had been unable to ignore the nobility of Priscilla's truth, and having acknowledged it to herself she found herself compelled to acknowledge it aloud. She sat down to think in silence, and it was not till she had fortified herself by her first draught of beer, and till she had finished her first portion of bread and cheese, that she spoke. "I have written to your sister herself, this time," she said. "I don't know that I ever wrote a line to her before in my life." "Poor Priscilla!" Dorothy did not mean to be severe on her aunt, either in regard to the letters which had not been written, or to the one letter which now had been written. But Dorothy pitied her sister, whom she felt to be in trouble. "Well; I don't know about her being so poor. Priscilla, I'll be bound, thinks as well of herself as any of us do." "She'd cut her fingers off before she'd mean to do wrong," said Dorothy. "But what does that come to? What's the good of that? It isn't meaning to do right that will save us. For aught I know, the Radicals may mean to do right. Mr. Beales means to do right--perhaps." "But, aunt,--if everybody did the best they could?" "Tush, my dear! you are getting beyond your depth. There are such things still, thank God! as spiritual pastors and masters. Entrust yourself to them. Do what they think right." Now if aught were known in Exeter of Miss Stanbury, this was known,--that if any clergyman volunteered to give to her, unasked and uninvited, counsel, either ghostly or bodily, that clergyman would be sent from her presence with a wigging which he would not soon forget. The thing had been tried more than once, and the wigging had been complete. There was no more attentive listener in church than Miss Stanbury; and she would, now and again, appeal to a clergyman on some knotty point. But for the ordinary authority of spiritual pastors and masters she shewed more of abstract reverence than of practical obedience. "I'm sure Priscilla does the best she can," said Dorothy, going back to the old subject. "Ah,--well,--yes. What I want to say about Priscilla is this. It is a thousand pities she is so obstinate, so pig-headed, so certain that she can manage everything for herself better than anybody else can for her." Miss Stanbury was striving to say something good of her niece, but found the task to be difficult and distasteful to her. "She has managed for mamma ever so many years; and since she took it we have hardly ever been in debt," said Dorothy. "She'll do all that, I don't doubt. I don't suppose she cares much for ribbons and false hair for herself." "Who? Priscilla! The idea of Priscilla with false hair!" "I dare say not;--I dare say not. I do not think she'd spend her mother's money on things of that kind." "Aunt Stanbury, you don't know her." "Ah; very well. Perhaps I don't. But, come, my dear, you are very hard upon me, and very anxious to take your sister's part. And what is it all about? I've just written to her as civil a letter as one woman ever wrote to another. And if I had chosen, I could have,--could have,--h--m--m." Miss Stanbury, as she hesitated for words in which to complete her sentence, revelled in the strength of the vituperation which she could have poured upon her niece's head, had she chosen to write her last letter about Colonel Osborne in her severe strain. "If you have written kindly to her, I am so much obliged to you," said Dorothy. "The truth is, Priscilla has meant to be right. Meaning won't go for much when the account is taken, unless the meaning comes from a proper source. But the poor girl has done as well as she has known how. I believe it is Hugh's fault more than anybody else's." This accusation was not pleasant to Dorothy, but she was too intent just now on Priscilla's case to defend her brother. "That man never ought to have been there; and that woman never ought to have been there. There cannot be a doubt about that. If Priscilla were sitting there opposite to me, she would own as much. I am sure she would." Miss Stanbury was quite right if she meant to assert that Priscilla had owned as much to herself. "And because I think so, I am willing to forgive her part in the matter. To me, personally, she has always been rude,--most uncourteous,--and,--and,--and unlike a younger woman to an older one, and an aunt, and all that. I suppose it is because she hates me." "Oh, no, Aunt Stanbury!" "My dear, I suppose it is. Why else should she treat me in such a way? But I do believe of her that she would rather eat an honest, dry crust, than dishonest cake and ale." "She would rather starve than pick up a crumb that was dishonest," said Dorothy, fairly bursting out into tears. "I believe it. I do believe it. There; what more can I say? Clock House, indeed! What matter what house you live in, so that you can pay the rent of it honestly?" "But the rent is paid--honestly," said Dorothy, amidst her sobs. "It's paid, I don't doubt. I dare say the woman's husband and your brother see to that among them. Oh, that my boy, Hugh, as he used to be, should have brought us all to this! But there's no knowing what they won't do among them. Reform, indeed! Murder, sacrilege, adultery, treason, atheism;--that's what Reform means; besides every kind of nastiness under the sun." In which latter category Miss Stanbury intended especially to include bad printer's ink, and paper made of straw. The reader may as well see the letter which was as civil a letter as ever one woman wrote to another, so that the collection of the Stanbury correspondence may be made perfect. The Close, August 6, 186--. MY DEAR NIECE, Your letter has not astonished me nearly as much as you expected it would. I am an older woman than you, and, though you will not believe it, I have seen more of the world. I knew that the gentleman would come after the lady. Such gentlemen always do go after their ladies. As for yourself, I can see all that you have done, and pretty nearly hear all that you have said, as plain as a pike-staff. I do you the credit of believing that the plan is none of your making. I know who made the plan, and a very bad plan it is. As to my former letters and the other man, I understand all about it. You were very angry that I should accuse you of having this man at the house; and you were right to be angry. I respect you for having been angry. But what does all that say as to his coming,--now that he has come? If you will consent to take an old woman's advice, get rid of the whole boiling of them. I say it in firm love and friendship, for I am,-- Your affectionate aunt, JEMIMA STANBURY. The special vaunted courtesy of this letter consisted, no doubt, in the expression of respect which it contained, and in that declaration of affection with which it terminated. The epithet was one which Miss Stanbury would by no means use promiscuously in writing to her nearest relatives. She had not intended to use it when she commenced her letter to Priscilla. But the respect of which she had spoken had glowed, and had warmed itself into something of temporary love; and feeling at the moment that she was an affectionate aunt, Miss Stanbury had so put herself down in her letter. Having done such a deed she felt that Dorothy, though Dorothy knew nothing about it, ought in her gratitude to listen patiently to anything that she might now choose to say against Priscilla. But Dorothy was in truth very miserable, and in her misery wrote a long letter that afternoon to her mother,--which, however, it will not be necessary to place entire among the Stanbury records,--begging that she might be informed as to the true circumstances of the case. She did not say a word of censure in regard either to her mother or sister; but she expressed an opinion in the mildest words which she could use, that if anything had happened which had compromised their names since their residence at the Clock House, she, Dorothy, had better go home and join them. The meaning of which was that it would not become her to remain in the house in the Close, if the house in the Close would be disgraced by her presence. Poor Dorothy had taught herself to think that the iniquity of roaring lions spread itself very widely. In the afternoon she made some such proposition to her aunt in ambiguous terms. "Go home!" said Miss Stanbury. "Now?" "If you think it best, Aunt Stanbury." "And put yourself in the middle of all this iniquity and abomination! I don't suppose you want to know the woman?" "No, indeed!" "Or the man?" "Oh, Aunt Stanbury!" "It's my belief that no decent gentleman in Exeter would look at you again if you were to go and live among them at Nuncombe Putney while all this is going on. No, no. Let one of you be saved out of it, at least." Aunt Stanbury had more than once made use of expressions which brought the faintest touch of gentle pink up to her niece's cheeks. We must do Dorothy the justice of saying that she had never dreamed of being looked at by any gentleman, whether decent or indecent. Her life at Nuncombe Putney had been of such a nature, that though she knew that other girls were looked at, and even made love to, and that they got married and had children, no dim vision of such a career for herself had ever presented itself to her eyes. She had known very well that her mother and sister and herself were people apart,--ladies, and yet so extremely poor, that they could only maintain their rank by the most rigid seclusion. To live, and work unseen, was what the world had ordained for her. Then her call to Exeter had come upon her, and she had conceived that she was henceforth to be the humble companion of a very imperious old aunt. Her aunt, indeed, was imperious, but did not seem to require humility in her companion. All the good things that were eaten and drunk were divided between them with the strictest impartiality. Dorothy's cushion and hassock in the church and in the cathedral were the same as her aunt's. Her bed-room was made very comfortable for her. Her aunt never gave her any orders before company, and always spoke of her before the servants as one whom they were to obey and respect. Gradually Dorothy came to understand the meaning of this;--but her aunt would sometimes say things about young men which she did not quite understand. Could it be that her aunt supposed that any young man would come and wish to marry her,--her, Dorothy Stanbury? She herself had not quite so strong an aversion to men in general as that which Priscilla felt, but she had not as yet found that any of those whom she had seen at Exeter were peculiarly agreeable to her. Before she went to bed that night her aunt said a word to her which startled her more than she had ever been startled before. On that evening Miss Stanbury had a few friends to drink tea with her. There were Mr. and Mrs. Crumbie, and Mrs. MacHugh of course, and the Cheritons from Alphington, and the Miss Apjohns from Helion Villa, and old Mr. Powel all the way from Haldon, and two of the Wrights from their house in the Northernhay, and Mr. Gibson;--but the Miss Frenches from Heavitree were not there. "Why don't you have the Miss Frenches, aunt?" Dorothy had asked. "Bother the Miss Frenches! I'm not bound to have them every time. There's Camilla has been and got herself a band-box on the back of her head a great deal bigger than the place inside where her brains ought to be." But the band-box at the back of Camilla French's head was not the sole cause of the omission of the two sisters from the list of Miss Stanbury's visitors on this occasion. The party went off very much as usual. There were two whist tables, for Miss Stanbury could not bear to cut out. At other houses than her own, when there was cutting out, it was quite understood that Miss Stanbury was to be allowed to keep her place. "I'll go away, and sit out there by myself, if you like," she would say. But she was never thus banished; and at her own house she usually contrived that there should be no system of banishment. She would play dummy whist, preferring it to the four-handed game; and, when hard driven, and with a meet opponent, would not even despise double-dummy. It was told of her and of Mrs. MacHugh that they had played double-dummy for a whole evening together; and they who were given to calumny had declared that the candles on that evening had been lighted very early. On the present occasion a great many sixpenny points were scored, and much tea and cake were consumed. Mr. Gibson never played whist,--nor did Dorothy. That young John Wright and Mary Cheriton should do nothing but talk to each other was a thing of course, as they were to be married in a month or two. Then there was Ida Cheriton, who could not very well be left at home; and Mr. Gibson made himself pleasant to Dorothy and Ida Cheriton, instead of making himself pleasant to the two Miss Frenches. Gentlemen in provincial towns quite understand that, from the nature of social circumstances in the provinces, they should always be ready to be pleasant at least to a pair at a time. At a few minutes before twelve they were all gone, and then came the shock. "Dolly, my dear, what do you think of Mr. Gibson?" "Think of him, Aunt Stanbury?" "Yes; think of him;--think of him. I suppose you know how to think?" "He seems to me always to preach very drawling sermons." "Oh, bother his sermons! I don't care anything about his sermons now. He is a very good clergyman, and the Dean thinks very much about him." "I am glad of that, Aunt Stanbury." Then came the shock. "Don't you think it would be a very good thing if you were to become Mrs. Gibson?" It may be presumed that Miss Stanbury had assured herself that she could not make progress with Dorothy by "beating about the bush." There was an inaptitude in her niece to comprehend the advantages of the situations, which made some direct explanation absolutely necessary. Dorothy stood half-smiling, half-crying, when she heard the proposition, her cheeks suffused with that pink colour, and with both her hands extended with surprise. "I've been thinking about it ever since you've been here," said Miss Stanbury. "I think he likes Miss French," said Dorothy, in a whisper. "Which of them? I don't believe he likes them at all. Maybe, if they go on long enough, they may be able to toss up for him. But I don't think it of him. Of course they're after him, but he'll be too wise for them. And he's more of a fool than I take him to be if he don't prefer you to them." Dorothy remained quite silent. To such an address as this it was impossible that she should reply a word. It was incredible to her that any man should prefer herself to either of the young women in question; but she was too much confounded for the expression even of her humility. "At any rate you're wholesome, and pleasant and modest," said Miss Stanbury. Dorothy did not quite like being told that she was wholesome; but, nevertheless, she was thankful to her aunt. "I'll tell you what it is," continued Miss Stanbury; "I hate all mysteries, especially with those I love. I've saved two thousand pounds, which I've put you down for in my will. Now, if you and he can make it up together, I'll give you the money at once. There's no knowing how often an old woman may alter her will; but when you've got a thing, you've got it. Mr. Gibson would know the meaning of a bird in the hand as well as anybody. Now those girls at Heavitree will never have above a few hundreds each, and not that while their mother lives." Dorothy made one little attempt at squeezing her aunt's hand, wishing to thank her aunt for this affectionate generosity; but she had hardly accomplished the squeeze, when she desisted, feeling strangely averse to any acknowledgment of such a boon as that which had been offered to her. "And now, good night, my dear. If I did not think you a very sensible young woman, I should not trust you by saying all this." Then they parted, and Dorothy soon found herself alone in her bedroom. To have a husband of her own, a perfect gentleman too, and a clergyman;--and to go to him with a fortune! She believed that two thousand pounds represented nearly a hundred a year. It was a large fortune in those parts,--according to her understanding of ladies' fortunes. And that she, the humblest of the humble, should be selected for so honourable a position! She had never quite known, quite understood as yet, whether she had made good her footing in her aunt's house in a manner pleasant to her aunt. More than once or twice she had spoken even of going back to her mother, and things had been said which had almost made her think that her aunt had been angry with her. But now, after a month or two of joint residence, her aunt was offering to her--two thousand pounds and a husband! But was it within her aunt's power to offer to her the husband? Mr. Gibson had always been very civil to her. She had spoken more to Mr. Gibson than to any other man in Exeter. But it had never occurred to her for a moment that Mr. Gibson had any special liking for her. Was it probable that he would ever entertain any feeling of that kind for her? It certainly had occurred to her before now that Mr. Gibson was sometimes bored by the Miss Frenches;--but then gentlemen do get bored by ladies. And at last she asked herself another question,--had she any special liking for Mr. Gibson? As far as she understood such matters everything was blank there. Thinking of that other question, she went to sleep. CHAPTER XXIII. COLONEL OSBORNE AND MR. BOZZLE RETURN TO LONDON. Hugh Stanbury went down on the Saturday, by the early express to Exeter, on his road to Lessboro'. He took his ticket through to Lessboro', not purposing to stay at Exeter; but, from the exigencies of the various trains, it was necessary that he should remain for half an hour at the Exeter Station. This took place on the Saturday, and Colonel Osborne's visit to the Clock House had been made on the Friday. Colonel Osborne had returned to Lessboro', had slept again at Mrs. Clegg's house, and returned to London on the Saturday. It so happened that he also was obliged to spend half an hour at the Exeter Station, and that his half-hour, and Hugh Stanbury's half-hour, were one and the same. They met, therefore, as a matter of course, upon the platform. Stanbury was the first to see the other, and he found that he must determine on the spur of the moment what he would say, and what he would do. He had received no direct commission from Trevelyan as to his meeting with Colonel Osborne. Trevelyan had declared that, as to the matter of quarrelling, he meant to retain the privilege of doing that for himself; but Stanbury had quite understood that this was only the vague expression of an angry man. The Colonel had taken a glass of sherry, and had lighted a cigar, and was quite comfortable,--having thrown aside, for a time, that consciousness of the futility of his journey which had perplexed him,--when Stanbury accosted him. "What! Mr. Stanbury,--how do you do? Fine day, isn't it? Are you going up or down?" "I'm going to see my own people at Nuncombe Putney, a village beyond Lessboro'," said Hugh. "Ah;--indeed." Colonel Osborne of course perceived at once that as this man was going to the house at which he had just been visiting, it would be better that he should himself explain what he had done. If he were to allow this mention of Nuncombe Putney to pass without saying that he himself had been there, he would be convicted of at least some purpose of secrecy in what he had been doing. "Very strange," said he; "I was at Nuncombe Putney myself yesterday." "I know you were," said Stanbury. "And how did you know it?" There had been a tone of anger in Stanbury's voice which Colonel Osborne had at once appreciated, and which made him assume a similar tone. As they spoke there was a man standing in a corner close by the bookstall, with his eye upon them, and that man was Bozzle, the ex-policeman,--who was doing his duty with sedulous activity by seeing "the Colonel" back to London. Now Bozzle did not know Hugh Stanbury, and was angry with himself that he should be so ignorant. It is the pride of a detective ex-policeman to know everybody that comes in his way. "Well, I had been so informed. My friend Trevelyan knew that you were there,--or that you were going there." "I don't care who knew that I was going there," said the Colonel. "I won't pretend to understand how that may be, Colonel Osborne; but I think you must be aware, after what took place in Curzon Street, that it would have been better that you should not have attempted to see Mrs. Trevelyan. Whether you have seen her I do not know." "What business is it of yours, Mr. Stanbury, whether I have seen that lady or not?" "Unhappily for me, her husband has made it my business." "Very unhappily for you, I should say." "And the lady is staying at my mother's house." "I presume the lady is not a prisoner in your mother's house, and that your mother's hospitality is not so restricted but that her guest may see an old friend under her roof." This Colonel Osborne said with an assumed look of almost righteous indignation, which was not at all lost upon Bozzle. They had returned back towards the bookstall, and Bozzle, with his eyes fixed on a copy of the "D. R." which he had just bought, was straining his ears to the utmost to catch what was being said. "You best know whether you have seen her or not." "I have seen her." "Then I shall take leave to tell you, Colonel Osborne, that you have acted in a most unfriendly way, and have done that which must tend to keep an affectionate husband apart from his wife." "Sir, I don't at all understand this kind of thing addressed to me. The father of the lady you are speaking of has been my most intimate friend for thirty years." After all, the Colonel was a mean man when he could take pride in his youth, and defend himself on the score of his age, in one and the same proceeding. "I have nothing further to say," replied Stanbury. "You have said too much already, Mr. Stanbury." "I think not, Colonel Osborne. You have, I fear, done an incredible deal of mischief by going to Nuncombe Putney; and, after all that you have heard on the subject, you must have known that it would be mischievous. I cannot understand how you can | touch | How many times the word 'touch' appears in the text? | 2 |
very great,--so great that in its first flush she could not restrain herself from exhibiting it to Dorothy. "Well,--well,--what do you think, Dolly?" "About what, aunt? I don't know who the letter is from." "Nobody writes to me now so constant as your sister Priscilla. The letter is from Priscilla. Colonel Osborne has been at the Clock House, after all. I knew that he would be there. I knew it! I knew it!" Dorothy, when she heard this, was dumbfounded. She had rested her defence of her mother and sister on the impossibility of any such visit being admitted. According to her lights the coming of Colonel Osborne, after all that had been said, would be like the coming of Lucifer himself. The Colonel was, to her imagination, a horrible roaring lion. She had no idea that the erratic manoeuvres of such a beast might be milder and more innocent than the wooing of any turtle-dove. She would have asked whether the roaring lion had gone away again, and, if so, whether he had taken his prey with him, were it not that she was too much frightened at the moment to ask any question. That her mother and sister should have been wilfully concerned in such iniquity was quite incredible to her, but yet she did not know how to defend them. "But are you quite sure of it, Aunt Stanbury? May there not be another mistake?" "No mistake this time, I think, my dear. Any way, Priscilla says that he is there." Now in this there was a mistake. Priscilla had said nothing of the kind. "You don't mean that he is staying at the Clock House, Aunt Stanbury?" "I don't know where he is now. I'm not his keeper. And, I'm glad to say, I'm not the lady's keeper either. Ah, me! It's a bad business. You can't touch pitch and not be defiled, my dear. If your mother wanted the Clock House, I would sooner have taken it for her myself than that all this should have happened,--for the family's sake." But Miss Stanbury, when she was alone, and when she had read her niece's three letters again and again, began to understand something of Priscilla's honesty, and began also to perceive that there might have been a great difficulty respecting the Colonel, for which neither her niece nor her sister-in-law could fairly be held to be responsible. It was perhaps the plainest characteristic of all the Stanburys that they were never wilfully dishonest. Ignorant, prejudiced, and passionate they might be. In her anger Miss Stanbury, of Exeter, could be almost malicious; and her niece at Nuncombe Putney was very like her aunt. Each could say most cruel things, most unjust things, when actuated by a mistaken consciousness of perfect right on her own side. But neither of them could lie,--even by silence. Let an error be brought home to either of them,--so as to be acknowledged at home,--and the error would be assuredly confessed aloud. And, indeed, with differences in the shades, Hugh and Dorothy were of the same nature. They were possessed of sweeter tempers than their aunt and sister, but they were filled with the same eager readiness to believe themselves to be right,--and to own themselves to others to be wrong, when they had been constrained to make such confession to themselves. The chances of life, and something probably of inner nature, had made Dorothy mild and obedient; whereas, in regard to Hugh, the circumstances of his life and disposition had made him obstinate and self-reliant. But in all was to be found the same belief in self,--which amounted almost to conceit,--the same warmth of affection, and the same love of justice. When Miss Stanbury had again perused the correspondence, and had come to see, dimly, how things had gone at Nuncombe Putney,--when the conviction came upon her mind that Priscilla had entertained a horror as to the coming of this Colonel equal to that which she herself had felt,--when her imagination painted to her all that her niece had suffered, her heart was softened somewhat. She had declared to Dorothy that pitch, if touched, would certainly defile; and she had, at first, intended to send the same opinion, couched in very forcible words, to her correspondents at the Clock House. They should not continue to go astray for want of being told that they were going astray. It must be acknowledged, too, that there was a certain amount of ignoble wrath in the bosom of Miss Stanbury because her sister-in-law had taken the Clock House. She had never been told, and had not even condescended to ask Dorothy, whether the house was taken and paid for by her nephew on behalf of his mother, or whether it was paid for by Mr. Trevelyan on behalf of his wife. In the latter case, Mrs. Stanbury would, she thought, be little more than an upper servant, or keeper,--as she expressed it to herself. Such an arrangement appeared to her to be quite disgraceful in a Stanbury; but yet she believed that such must be the existing arrangement, as she could not bring herself to conceive that Hugh Stanbury could keep such an establishment over his mother's head out of money earned by writing for a penny newspaper. There would be a triumph of democracy in this which would vanquish her altogether. She had, therefore, been anxious enough to trample on Priscilla and upon all the affairs of the Clock House; but yet she had been unable to ignore the nobility of Priscilla's truth, and having acknowledged it to herself she found herself compelled to acknowledge it aloud. She sat down to think in silence, and it was not till she had fortified herself by her first draught of beer, and till she had finished her first portion of bread and cheese, that she spoke. "I have written to your sister herself, this time," she said. "I don't know that I ever wrote a line to her before in my life." "Poor Priscilla!" Dorothy did not mean to be severe on her aunt, either in regard to the letters which had not been written, or to the one letter which now had been written. But Dorothy pitied her sister, whom she felt to be in trouble. "Well; I don't know about her being so poor. Priscilla, I'll be bound, thinks as well of herself as any of us do." "She'd cut her fingers off before she'd mean to do wrong," said Dorothy. "But what does that come to? What's the good of that? It isn't meaning to do right that will save us. For aught I know, the Radicals may mean to do right. Mr. Beales means to do right--perhaps." "But, aunt,--if everybody did the best they could?" "Tush, my dear! you are getting beyond your depth. There are such things still, thank God! as spiritual pastors and masters. Entrust yourself to them. Do what they think right." Now if aught were known in Exeter of Miss Stanbury, this was known,--that if any clergyman volunteered to give to her, unasked and uninvited, counsel, either ghostly or bodily, that clergyman would be sent from her presence with a wigging which he would not soon forget. The thing had been tried more than once, and the wigging had been complete. There was no more attentive listener in church than Miss Stanbury; and she would, now and again, appeal to a clergyman on some knotty point. But for the ordinary authority of spiritual pastors and masters she shewed more of abstract reverence than of practical obedience. "I'm sure Priscilla does the best she can," said Dorothy, going back to the old subject. "Ah,--well,--yes. What I want to say about Priscilla is this. It is a thousand pities she is so obstinate, so pig-headed, so certain that she can manage everything for herself better than anybody else can for her." Miss Stanbury was striving to say something good of her niece, but found the task to be difficult and distasteful to her. "She has managed for mamma ever so many years; and since she took it we have hardly ever been in debt," said Dorothy. "She'll do all that, I don't doubt. I don't suppose she cares much for ribbons and false hair for herself." "Who? Priscilla! The idea of Priscilla with false hair!" "I dare say not;--I dare say not. I do not think she'd spend her mother's money on things of that kind." "Aunt Stanbury, you don't know her." "Ah; very well. Perhaps I don't. But, come, my dear, you are very hard upon me, and very anxious to take your sister's part. And what is it all about? I've just written to her as civil a letter as one woman ever wrote to another. And if I had chosen, I could have,--could have,--h--m--m." Miss Stanbury, as she hesitated for words in which to complete her sentence, revelled in the strength of the vituperation which she could have poured upon her niece's head, had she chosen to write her last letter about Colonel Osborne in her severe strain. "If you have written kindly to her, I am so much obliged to you," said Dorothy. "The truth is, Priscilla has meant to be right. Meaning won't go for much when the account is taken, unless the meaning comes from a proper source. But the poor girl has done as well as she has known how. I believe it is Hugh's fault more than anybody else's." This accusation was not pleasant to Dorothy, but she was too intent just now on Priscilla's case to defend her brother. "That man never ought to have been there; and that woman never ought to have been there. There cannot be a doubt about that. If Priscilla were sitting there opposite to me, she would own as much. I am sure she would." Miss Stanbury was quite right if she meant to assert that Priscilla had owned as much to herself. "And because I think so, I am willing to forgive her part in the matter. To me, personally, she has always been rude,--most uncourteous,--and,--and,--and unlike a younger woman to an older one, and an aunt, and all that. I suppose it is because she hates me." "Oh, no, Aunt Stanbury!" "My dear, I suppose it is. Why else should she treat me in such a way? But I do believe of her that she would rather eat an honest, dry crust, than dishonest cake and ale." "She would rather starve than pick up a crumb that was dishonest," said Dorothy, fairly bursting out into tears. "I believe it. I do believe it. There; what more can I say? Clock House, indeed! What matter what house you live in, so that you can pay the rent of it honestly?" "But the rent is paid--honestly," said Dorothy, amidst her sobs. "It's paid, I don't doubt. I dare say the woman's husband and your brother see to that among them. Oh, that my boy, Hugh, as he used to be, should have brought us all to this! But there's no knowing what they won't do among them. Reform, indeed! Murder, sacrilege, adultery, treason, atheism;--that's what Reform means; besides every kind of nastiness under the sun." In which latter category Miss Stanbury intended especially to include bad printer's ink, and paper made of straw. The reader may as well see the letter which was as civil a letter as ever one woman wrote to another, so that the collection of the Stanbury correspondence may be made perfect. The Close, August 6, 186--. MY DEAR NIECE, Your letter has not astonished me nearly as much as you expected it would. I am an older woman than you, and, though you will not believe it, I have seen more of the world. I knew that the gentleman would come after the lady. Such gentlemen always do go after their ladies. As for yourself, I can see all that you have done, and pretty nearly hear all that you have said, as plain as a pike-staff. I do you the credit of believing that the plan is none of your making. I know who made the plan, and a very bad plan it is. As to my former letters and the other man, I understand all about it. You were very angry that I should accuse you of having this man at the house; and you were right to be angry. I respect you for having been angry. But what does all that say as to his coming,--now that he has come? If you will consent to take an old woman's advice, get rid of the whole boiling of them. I say it in firm love and friendship, for I am,-- Your affectionate aunt, JEMIMA STANBURY. The special vaunted courtesy of this letter consisted, no doubt, in the expression of respect which it contained, and in that declaration of affection with which it terminated. The epithet was one which Miss Stanbury would by no means use promiscuously in writing to her nearest relatives. She had not intended to use it when she commenced her letter to Priscilla. But the respect of which she had spoken had glowed, and had warmed itself into something of temporary love; and feeling at the moment that she was an affectionate aunt, Miss Stanbury had so put herself down in her letter. Having done such a deed she felt that Dorothy, though Dorothy knew nothing about it, ought in her gratitude to listen patiently to anything that she might now choose to say against Priscilla. But Dorothy was in truth very miserable, and in her misery wrote a long letter that afternoon to her mother,--which, however, it will not be necessary to place entire among the Stanbury records,--begging that she might be informed as to the true circumstances of the case. She did not say a word of censure in regard either to her mother or sister; but she expressed an opinion in the mildest words which she could use, that if anything had happened which had compromised their names since their residence at the Clock House, she, Dorothy, had better go home and join them. The meaning of which was that it would not become her to remain in the house in the Close, if the house in the Close would be disgraced by her presence. Poor Dorothy had taught herself to think that the iniquity of roaring lions spread itself very widely. In the afternoon she made some such proposition to her aunt in ambiguous terms. "Go home!" said Miss Stanbury. "Now?" "If you think it best, Aunt Stanbury." "And put yourself in the middle of all this iniquity and abomination! I don't suppose you want to know the woman?" "No, indeed!" "Or the man?" "Oh, Aunt Stanbury!" "It's my belief that no decent gentleman in Exeter would look at you again if you were to go and live among them at Nuncombe Putney while all this is going on. No, no. Let one of you be saved out of it, at least." Aunt Stanbury had more than once made use of expressions which brought the faintest touch of gentle pink up to her niece's cheeks. We must do Dorothy the justice of saying that she had never dreamed of being looked at by any gentleman, whether decent or indecent. Her life at Nuncombe Putney had been of such a nature, that though she knew that other girls were looked at, and even made love to, and that they got married and had children, no dim vision of such a career for herself had ever presented itself to her eyes. She had known very well that her mother and sister and herself were people apart,--ladies, and yet so extremely poor, that they could only maintain their rank by the most rigid seclusion. To live, and work unseen, was what the world had ordained for her. Then her call to Exeter had come upon her, and she had conceived that she was henceforth to be the humble companion of a very imperious old aunt. Her aunt, indeed, was imperious, but did not seem to require humility in her companion. All the good things that were eaten and drunk were divided between them with the strictest impartiality. Dorothy's cushion and hassock in the church and in the cathedral were the same as her aunt's. Her bed-room was made very comfortable for her. Her aunt never gave her any orders before company, and always spoke of her before the servants as one whom they were to obey and respect. Gradually Dorothy came to understand the meaning of this;--but her aunt would sometimes say things about young men which she did not quite understand. Could it be that her aunt supposed that any young man would come and wish to marry her,--her, Dorothy Stanbury? She herself had not quite so strong an aversion to men in general as that which Priscilla felt, but she had not as yet found that any of those whom she had seen at Exeter were peculiarly agreeable to her. Before she went to bed that night her aunt said a word to her which startled her more than she had ever been startled before. On that evening Miss Stanbury had a few friends to drink tea with her. There were Mr. and Mrs. Crumbie, and Mrs. MacHugh of course, and the Cheritons from Alphington, and the Miss Apjohns from Helion Villa, and old Mr. Powel all the way from Haldon, and two of the Wrights from their house in the Northernhay, and Mr. Gibson;--but the Miss Frenches from Heavitree were not there. "Why don't you have the Miss Frenches, aunt?" Dorothy had asked. "Bother the Miss Frenches! I'm not bound to have them every time. There's Camilla has been and got herself a band-box on the back of her head a great deal bigger than the place inside where her brains ought to be." But the band-box at the back of Camilla French's head was not the sole cause of the omission of the two sisters from the list of Miss Stanbury's visitors on this occasion. The party went off very much as usual. There were two whist tables, for Miss Stanbury could not bear to cut out. At other houses than her own, when there was cutting out, it was quite understood that Miss Stanbury was to be allowed to keep her place. "I'll go away, and sit out there by myself, if you like," she would say. But she was never thus banished; and at her own house she usually contrived that there should be no system of banishment. She would play dummy whist, preferring it to the four-handed game; and, when hard driven, and with a meet opponent, would not even despise double-dummy. It was told of her and of Mrs. MacHugh that they had played double-dummy for a whole evening together; and they who were given to calumny had declared that the candles on that evening had been lighted very early. On the present occasion a great many sixpenny points were scored, and much tea and cake were consumed. Mr. Gibson never played whist,--nor did Dorothy. That young John Wright and Mary Cheriton should do nothing but talk to each other was a thing of course, as they were to be married in a month or two. Then there was Ida Cheriton, who could not very well be left at home; and Mr. Gibson made himself pleasant to Dorothy and Ida Cheriton, instead of making himself pleasant to the two Miss Frenches. Gentlemen in provincial towns quite understand that, from the nature of social circumstances in the provinces, they should always be ready to be pleasant at least to a pair at a time. At a few minutes before twelve they were all gone, and then came the shock. "Dolly, my dear, what do you think of Mr. Gibson?" "Think of him, Aunt Stanbury?" "Yes; think of him;--think of him. I suppose you know how to think?" "He seems to me always to preach very drawling sermons." "Oh, bother his sermons! I don't care anything about his sermons now. He is a very good clergyman, and the Dean thinks very much about him." "I am glad of that, Aunt Stanbury." Then came the shock. "Don't you think it would be a very good thing if you were to become Mrs. Gibson?" It may be presumed that Miss Stanbury had assured herself that she could not make progress with Dorothy by "beating about the bush." There was an inaptitude in her niece to comprehend the advantages of the situations, which made some direct explanation absolutely necessary. Dorothy stood half-smiling, half-crying, when she heard the proposition, her cheeks suffused with that pink colour, and with both her hands extended with surprise. "I've been thinking about it ever since you've been here," said Miss Stanbury. "I think he likes Miss French," said Dorothy, in a whisper. "Which of them? I don't believe he likes them at all. Maybe, if they go on long enough, they may be able to toss up for him. But I don't think it of him. Of course they're after him, but he'll be too wise for them. And he's more of a fool than I take him to be if he don't prefer you to them." Dorothy remained quite silent. To such an address as this it was impossible that she should reply a word. It was incredible to her that any man should prefer herself to either of the young women in question; but she was too much confounded for the expression even of her humility. "At any rate you're wholesome, and pleasant and modest," said Miss Stanbury. Dorothy did not quite like being told that she was wholesome; but, nevertheless, she was thankful to her aunt. "I'll tell you what it is," continued Miss Stanbury; "I hate all mysteries, especially with those I love. I've saved two thousand pounds, which I've put you down for in my will. Now, if you and he can make it up together, I'll give you the money at once. There's no knowing how often an old woman may alter her will; but when you've got a thing, you've got it. Mr. Gibson would know the meaning of a bird in the hand as well as anybody. Now those girls at Heavitree will never have above a few hundreds each, and not that while their mother lives." Dorothy made one little attempt at squeezing her aunt's hand, wishing to thank her aunt for this affectionate generosity; but she had hardly accomplished the squeeze, when she desisted, feeling strangely averse to any acknowledgment of such a boon as that which had been offered to her. "And now, good night, my dear. If I did not think you a very sensible young woman, I should not trust you by saying all this." Then they parted, and Dorothy soon found herself alone in her bedroom. To have a husband of her own, a perfect gentleman too, and a clergyman;--and to go to him with a fortune! She believed that two thousand pounds represented nearly a hundred a year. It was a large fortune in those parts,--according to her understanding of ladies' fortunes. And that she, the humblest of the humble, should be selected for so honourable a position! She had never quite known, quite understood as yet, whether she had made good her footing in her aunt's house in a manner pleasant to her aunt. More than once or twice she had spoken even of going back to her mother, and things had been said which had almost made her think that her aunt had been angry with her. But now, after a month or two of joint residence, her aunt was offering to her--two thousand pounds and a husband! But was it within her aunt's power to offer to her the husband? Mr. Gibson had always been very civil to her. She had spoken more to Mr. Gibson than to any other man in Exeter. But it had never occurred to her for a moment that Mr. Gibson had any special liking for her. Was it probable that he would ever entertain any feeling of that kind for her? It certainly had occurred to her before now that Mr. Gibson was sometimes bored by the Miss Frenches;--but then gentlemen do get bored by ladies. And at last she asked herself another question,--had she any special liking for Mr. Gibson? As far as she understood such matters everything was blank there. Thinking of that other question, she went to sleep. CHAPTER XXIII. COLONEL OSBORNE AND MR. BOZZLE RETURN TO LONDON. Hugh Stanbury went down on the Saturday, by the early express to Exeter, on his road to Lessboro'. He took his ticket through to Lessboro', not purposing to stay at Exeter; but, from the exigencies of the various trains, it was necessary that he should remain for half an hour at the Exeter Station. This took place on the Saturday, and Colonel Osborne's visit to the Clock House had been made on the Friday. Colonel Osborne had returned to Lessboro', had slept again at Mrs. Clegg's house, and returned to London on the Saturday. It so happened that he also was obliged to spend half an hour at the Exeter Station, and that his half-hour, and Hugh Stanbury's half-hour, were one and the same. They met, therefore, as a matter of course, upon the platform. Stanbury was the first to see the other, and he found that he must determine on the spur of the moment what he would say, and what he would do. He had received no direct commission from Trevelyan as to his meeting with Colonel Osborne. Trevelyan had declared that, as to the matter of quarrelling, he meant to retain the privilege of doing that for himself; but Stanbury had quite understood that this was only the vague expression of an angry man. The Colonel had taken a glass of sherry, and had lighted a cigar, and was quite comfortable,--having thrown aside, for a time, that consciousness of the futility of his journey which had perplexed him,--when Stanbury accosted him. "What! Mr. Stanbury,--how do you do? Fine day, isn't it? Are you going up or down?" "I'm going to see my own people at Nuncombe Putney, a village beyond Lessboro'," said Hugh. "Ah;--indeed." Colonel Osborne of course perceived at once that as this man was going to the house at which he had just been visiting, it would be better that he should himself explain what he had done. If he were to allow this mention of Nuncombe Putney to pass without saying that he himself had been there, he would be convicted of at least some purpose of secrecy in what he had been doing. "Very strange," said he; "I was at Nuncombe Putney myself yesterday." "I know you were," said Stanbury. "And how did you know it?" There had been a tone of anger in Stanbury's voice which Colonel Osborne had at once appreciated, and which made him assume a similar tone. As they spoke there was a man standing in a corner close by the bookstall, with his eye upon them, and that man was Bozzle, the ex-policeman,--who was doing his duty with sedulous activity by seeing "the Colonel" back to London. Now Bozzle did not know Hugh Stanbury, and was angry with himself that he should be so ignorant. It is the pride of a detective ex-policeman to know everybody that comes in his way. "Well, I had been so informed. My friend Trevelyan knew that you were there,--or that you were going there." "I don't care who knew that I was going there," said the Colonel. "I won't pretend to understand how that may be, Colonel Osborne; but I think you must be aware, after what took place in Curzon Street, that it would have been better that you should not have attempted to see Mrs. Trevelyan. Whether you have seen her I do not know." "What business is it of yours, Mr. Stanbury, whether I have seen that lady or not?" "Unhappily for me, her husband has made it my business." "Very unhappily for you, I should say." "And the lady is staying at my mother's house." "I presume the lady is not a prisoner in your mother's house, and that your mother's hospitality is not so restricted but that her guest may see an old friend under her roof." This Colonel Osborne said with an assumed look of almost righteous indignation, which was not at all lost upon Bozzle. They had returned back towards the bookstall, and Bozzle, with his eyes fixed on a copy of the "D. R." which he had just bought, was straining his ears to the utmost to catch what was being said. "You best know whether you have seen her or not." "I have seen her." "Then I shall take leave to tell you, Colonel Osborne, that you have acted in a most unfriendly way, and have done that which must tend to keep an affectionate husband apart from his wife." "Sir, I don't at all understand this kind of thing addressed to me. The father of the lady you are speaking of has been my most intimate friend for thirty years." After all, the Colonel was a mean man when he could take pride in his youth, and defend himself on the score of his age, in one and the same proceeding. "I have nothing further to say," replied Stanbury. "You have said too much already, Mr. Stanbury." "I think not, Colonel Osborne. You have, I fear, done an incredible deal of mischief by going to Nuncombe Putney; and, after all that you have heard on the subject, you must have known that it would be mischievous. I cannot understand how you can | chewing | How many times the word 'chewing' appears in the text? | 0 |
very great,--so great that in its first flush she could not restrain herself from exhibiting it to Dorothy. "Well,--well,--what do you think, Dolly?" "About what, aunt? I don't know who the letter is from." "Nobody writes to me now so constant as your sister Priscilla. The letter is from Priscilla. Colonel Osborne has been at the Clock House, after all. I knew that he would be there. I knew it! I knew it!" Dorothy, when she heard this, was dumbfounded. She had rested her defence of her mother and sister on the impossibility of any such visit being admitted. According to her lights the coming of Colonel Osborne, after all that had been said, would be like the coming of Lucifer himself. The Colonel was, to her imagination, a horrible roaring lion. She had no idea that the erratic manoeuvres of such a beast might be milder and more innocent than the wooing of any turtle-dove. She would have asked whether the roaring lion had gone away again, and, if so, whether he had taken his prey with him, were it not that she was too much frightened at the moment to ask any question. That her mother and sister should have been wilfully concerned in such iniquity was quite incredible to her, but yet she did not know how to defend them. "But are you quite sure of it, Aunt Stanbury? May there not be another mistake?" "No mistake this time, I think, my dear. Any way, Priscilla says that he is there." Now in this there was a mistake. Priscilla had said nothing of the kind. "You don't mean that he is staying at the Clock House, Aunt Stanbury?" "I don't know where he is now. I'm not his keeper. And, I'm glad to say, I'm not the lady's keeper either. Ah, me! It's a bad business. You can't touch pitch and not be defiled, my dear. If your mother wanted the Clock House, I would sooner have taken it for her myself than that all this should have happened,--for the family's sake." But Miss Stanbury, when she was alone, and when she had read her niece's three letters again and again, began to understand something of Priscilla's honesty, and began also to perceive that there might have been a great difficulty respecting the Colonel, for which neither her niece nor her sister-in-law could fairly be held to be responsible. It was perhaps the plainest characteristic of all the Stanburys that they were never wilfully dishonest. Ignorant, prejudiced, and passionate they might be. In her anger Miss Stanbury, of Exeter, could be almost malicious; and her niece at Nuncombe Putney was very like her aunt. Each could say most cruel things, most unjust things, when actuated by a mistaken consciousness of perfect right on her own side. But neither of them could lie,--even by silence. Let an error be brought home to either of them,--so as to be acknowledged at home,--and the error would be assuredly confessed aloud. And, indeed, with differences in the shades, Hugh and Dorothy were of the same nature. They were possessed of sweeter tempers than their aunt and sister, but they were filled with the same eager readiness to believe themselves to be right,--and to own themselves to others to be wrong, when they had been constrained to make such confession to themselves. The chances of life, and something probably of inner nature, had made Dorothy mild and obedient; whereas, in regard to Hugh, the circumstances of his life and disposition had made him obstinate and self-reliant. But in all was to be found the same belief in self,--which amounted almost to conceit,--the same warmth of affection, and the same love of justice. When Miss Stanbury had again perused the correspondence, and had come to see, dimly, how things had gone at Nuncombe Putney,--when the conviction came upon her mind that Priscilla had entertained a horror as to the coming of this Colonel equal to that which she herself had felt,--when her imagination painted to her all that her niece had suffered, her heart was softened somewhat. She had declared to Dorothy that pitch, if touched, would certainly defile; and she had, at first, intended to send the same opinion, couched in very forcible words, to her correspondents at the Clock House. They should not continue to go astray for want of being told that they were going astray. It must be acknowledged, too, that there was a certain amount of ignoble wrath in the bosom of Miss Stanbury because her sister-in-law had taken the Clock House. She had never been told, and had not even condescended to ask Dorothy, whether the house was taken and paid for by her nephew on behalf of his mother, or whether it was paid for by Mr. Trevelyan on behalf of his wife. In the latter case, Mrs. Stanbury would, she thought, be little more than an upper servant, or keeper,--as she expressed it to herself. Such an arrangement appeared to her to be quite disgraceful in a Stanbury; but yet she believed that such must be the existing arrangement, as she could not bring herself to conceive that Hugh Stanbury could keep such an establishment over his mother's head out of money earned by writing for a penny newspaper. There would be a triumph of democracy in this which would vanquish her altogether. She had, therefore, been anxious enough to trample on Priscilla and upon all the affairs of the Clock House; but yet she had been unable to ignore the nobility of Priscilla's truth, and having acknowledged it to herself she found herself compelled to acknowledge it aloud. She sat down to think in silence, and it was not till she had fortified herself by her first draught of beer, and till she had finished her first portion of bread and cheese, that she spoke. "I have written to your sister herself, this time," she said. "I don't know that I ever wrote a line to her before in my life." "Poor Priscilla!" Dorothy did not mean to be severe on her aunt, either in regard to the letters which had not been written, or to the one letter which now had been written. But Dorothy pitied her sister, whom she felt to be in trouble. "Well; I don't know about her being so poor. Priscilla, I'll be bound, thinks as well of herself as any of us do." "She'd cut her fingers off before she'd mean to do wrong," said Dorothy. "But what does that come to? What's the good of that? It isn't meaning to do right that will save us. For aught I know, the Radicals may mean to do right. Mr. Beales means to do right--perhaps." "But, aunt,--if everybody did the best they could?" "Tush, my dear! you are getting beyond your depth. There are such things still, thank God! as spiritual pastors and masters. Entrust yourself to them. Do what they think right." Now if aught were known in Exeter of Miss Stanbury, this was known,--that if any clergyman volunteered to give to her, unasked and uninvited, counsel, either ghostly or bodily, that clergyman would be sent from her presence with a wigging which he would not soon forget. The thing had been tried more than once, and the wigging had been complete. There was no more attentive listener in church than Miss Stanbury; and she would, now and again, appeal to a clergyman on some knotty point. But for the ordinary authority of spiritual pastors and masters she shewed more of abstract reverence than of practical obedience. "I'm sure Priscilla does the best she can," said Dorothy, going back to the old subject. "Ah,--well,--yes. What I want to say about Priscilla is this. It is a thousand pities she is so obstinate, so pig-headed, so certain that she can manage everything for herself better than anybody else can for her." Miss Stanbury was striving to say something good of her niece, but found the task to be difficult and distasteful to her. "She has managed for mamma ever so many years; and since she took it we have hardly ever been in debt," said Dorothy. "She'll do all that, I don't doubt. I don't suppose she cares much for ribbons and false hair for herself." "Who? Priscilla! The idea of Priscilla with false hair!" "I dare say not;--I dare say not. I do not think she'd spend her mother's money on things of that kind." "Aunt Stanbury, you don't know her." "Ah; very well. Perhaps I don't. But, come, my dear, you are very hard upon me, and very anxious to take your sister's part. And what is it all about? I've just written to her as civil a letter as one woman ever wrote to another. And if I had chosen, I could have,--could have,--h--m--m." Miss Stanbury, as she hesitated for words in which to complete her sentence, revelled in the strength of the vituperation which she could have poured upon her niece's head, had she chosen to write her last letter about Colonel Osborne in her severe strain. "If you have written kindly to her, I am so much obliged to you," said Dorothy. "The truth is, Priscilla has meant to be right. Meaning won't go for much when the account is taken, unless the meaning comes from a proper source. But the poor girl has done as well as she has known how. I believe it is Hugh's fault more than anybody else's." This accusation was not pleasant to Dorothy, but she was too intent just now on Priscilla's case to defend her brother. "That man never ought to have been there; and that woman never ought to have been there. There cannot be a doubt about that. If Priscilla were sitting there opposite to me, she would own as much. I am sure she would." Miss Stanbury was quite right if she meant to assert that Priscilla had owned as much to herself. "And because I think so, I am willing to forgive her part in the matter. To me, personally, she has always been rude,--most uncourteous,--and,--and,--and unlike a younger woman to an older one, and an aunt, and all that. I suppose it is because she hates me." "Oh, no, Aunt Stanbury!" "My dear, I suppose it is. Why else should she treat me in such a way? But I do believe of her that she would rather eat an honest, dry crust, than dishonest cake and ale." "She would rather starve than pick up a crumb that was dishonest," said Dorothy, fairly bursting out into tears. "I believe it. I do believe it. There; what more can I say? Clock House, indeed! What matter what house you live in, so that you can pay the rent of it honestly?" "But the rent is paid--honestly," said Dorothy, amidst her sobs. "It's paid, I don't doubt. I dare say the woman's husband and your brother see to that among them. Oh, that my boy, Hugh, as he used to be, should have brought us all to this! But there's no knowing what they won't do among them. Reform, indeed! Murder, sacrilege, adultery, treason, atheism;--that's what Reform means; besides every kind of nastiness under the sun." In which latter category Miss Stanbury intended especially to include bad printer's ink, and paper made of straw. The reader may as well see the letter which was as civil a letter as ever one woman wrote to another, so that the collection of the Stanbury correspondence may be made perfect. The Close, August 6, 186--. MY DEAR NIECE, Your letter has not astonished me nearly as much as you expected it would. I am an older woman than you, and, though you will not believe it, I have seen more of the world. I knew that the gentleman would come after the lady. Such gentlemen always do go after their ladies. As for yourself, I can see all that you have done, and pretty nearly hear all that you have said, as plain as a pike-staff. I do you the credit of believing that the plan is none of your making. I know who made the plan, and a very bad plan it is. As to my former letters and the other man, I understand all about it. You were very angry that I should accuse you of having this man at the house; and you were right to be angry. I respect you for having been angry. But what does all that say as to his coming,--now that he has come? If you will consent to take an old woman's advice, get rid of the whole boiling of them. I say it in firm love and friendship, for I am,-- Your affectionate aunt, JEMIMA STANBURY. The special vaunted courtesy of this letter consisted, no doubt, in the expression of respect which it contained, and in that declaration of affection with which it terminated. The epithet was one which Miss Stanbury would by no means use promiscuously in writing to her nearest relatives. She had not intended to use it when she commenced her letter to Priscilla. But the respect of which she had spoken had glowed, and had warmed itself into something of temporary love; and feeling at the moment that she was an affectionate aunt, Miss Stanbury had so put herself down in her letter. Having done such a deed she felt that Dorothy, though Dorothy knew nothing about it, ought in her gratitude to listen patiently to anything that she might now choose to say against Priscilla. But Dorothy was in truth very miserable, and in her misery wrote a long letter that afternoon to her mother,--which, however, it will not be necessary to place entire among the Stanbury records,--begging that she might be informed as to the true circumstances of the case. She did not say a word of censure in regard either to her mother or sister; but she expressed an opinion in the mildest words which she could use, that if anything had happened which had compromised their names since their residence at the Clock House, she, Dorothy, had better go home and join them. The meaning of which was that it would not become her to remain in the house in the Close, if the house in the Close would be disgraced by her presence. Poor Dorothy had taught herself to think that the iniquity of roaring lions spread itself very widely. In the afternoon she made some such proposition to her aunt in ambiguous terms. "Go home!" said Miss Stanbury. "Now?" "If you think it best, Aunt Stanbury." "And put yourself in the middle of all this iniquity and abomination! I don't suppose you want to know the woman?" "No, indeed!" "Or the man?" "Oh, Aunt Stanbury!" "It's my belief that no decent gentleman in Exeter would look at you again if you were to go and live among them at Nuncombe Putney while all this is going on. No, no. Let one of you be saved out of it, at least." Aunt Stanbury had more than once made use of expressions which brought the faintest touch of gentle pink up to her niece's cheeks. We must do Dorothy the justice of saying that she had never dreamed of being looked at by any gentleman, whether decent or indecent. Her life at Nuncombe Putney had been of such a nature, that though she knew that other girls were looked at, and even made love to, and that they got married and had children, no dim vision of such a career for herself had ever presented itself to her eyes. She had known very well that her mother and sister and herself were people apart,--ladies, and yet so extremely poor, that they could only maintain their rank by the most rigid seclusion. To live, and work unseen, was what the world had ordained for her. Then her call to Exeter had come upon her, and she had conceived that she was henceforth to be the humble companion of a very imperious old aunt. Her aunt, indeed, was imperious, but did not seem to require humility in her companion. All the good things that were eaten and drunk were divided between them with the strictest impartiality. Dorothy's cushion and hassock in the church and in the cathedral were the same as her aunt's. Her bed-room was made very comfortable for her. Her aunt never gave her any orders before company, and always spoke of her before the servants as one whom they were to obey and respect. Gradually Dorothy came to understand the meaning of this;--but her aunt would sometimes say things about young men which she did not quite understand. Could it be that her aunt supposed that any young man would come and wish to marry her,--her, Dorothy Stanbury? She herself had not quite so strong an aversion to men in general as that which Priscilla felt, but she had not as yet found that any of those whom she had seen at Exeter were peculiarly agreeable to her. Before she went to bed that night her aunt said a word to her which startled her more than she had ever been startled before. On that evening Miss Stanbury had a few friends to drink tea with her. There were Mr. and Mrs. Crumbie, and Mrs. MacHugh of course, and the Cheritons from Alphington, and the Miss Apjohns from Helion Villa, and old Mr. Powel all the way from Haldon, and two of the Wrights from their house in the Northernhay, and Mr. Gibson;--but the Miss Frenches from Heavitree were not there. "Why don't you have the Miss Frenches, aunt?" Dorothy had asked. "Bother the Miss Frenches! I'm not bound to have them every time. There's Camilla has been and got herself a band-box on the back of her head a great deal bigger than the place inside where her brains ought to be." But the band-box at the back of Camilla French's head was not the sole cause of the omission of the two sisters from the list of Miss Stanbury's visitors on this occasion. The party went off very much as usual. There were two whist tables, for Miss Stanbury could not bear to cut out. At other houses than her own, when there was cutting out, it was quite understood that Miss Stanbury was to be allowed to keep her place. "I'll go away, and sit out there by myself, if you like," she would say. But she was never thus banished; and at her own house she usually contrived that there should be no system of banishment. She would play dummy whist, preferring it to the four-handed game; and, when hard driven, and with a meet opponent, would not even despise double-dummy. It was told of her and of Mrs. MacHugh that they had played double-dummy for a whole evening together; and they who were given to calumny had declared that the candles on that evening had been lighted very early. On the present occasion a great many sixpenny points were scored, and much tea and cake were consumed. Mr. Gibson never played whist,--nor did Dorothy. That young John Wright and Mary Cheriton should do nothing but talk to each other was a thing of course, as they were to be married in a month or two. Then there was Ida Cheriton, who could not very well be left at home; and Mr. Gibson made himself pleasant to Dorothy and Ida Cheriton, instead of making himself pleasant to the two Miss Frenches. Gentlemen in provincial towns quite understand that, from the nature of social circumstances in the provinces, they should always be ready to be pleasant at least to a pair at a time. At a few minutes before twelve they were all gone, and then came the shock. "Dolly, my dear, what do you think of Mr. Gibson?" "Think of him, Aunt Stanbury?" "Yes; think of him;--think of him. I suppose you know how to think?" "He seems to me always to preach very drawling sermons." "Oh, bother his sermons! I don't care anything about his sermons now. He is a very good clergyman, and the Dean thinks very much about him." "I am glad of that, Aunt Stanbury." Then came the shock. "Don't you think it would be a very good thing if you were to become Mrs. Gibson?" It may be presumed that Miss Stanbury had assured herself that she could not make progress with Dorothy by "beating about the bush." There was an inaptitude in her niece to comprehend the advantages of the situations, which made some direct explanation absolutely necessary. Dorothy stood half-smiling, half-crying, when she heard the proposition, her cheeks suffused with that pink colour, and with both her hands extended with surprise. "I've been thinking about it ever since you've been here," said Miss Stanbury. "I think he likes Miss French," said Dorothy, in a whisper. "Which of them? I don't believe he likes them at all. Maybe, if they go on long enough, they may be able to toss up for him. But I don't think it of him. Of course they're after him, but he'll be too wise for them. And he's more of a fool than I take him to be if he don't prefer you to them." Dorothy remained quite silent. To such an address as this it was impossible that she should reply a word. It was incredible to her that any man should prefer herself to either of the young women in question; but she was too much confounded for the expression even of her humility. "At any rate you're wholesome, and pleasant and modest," said Miss Stanbury. Dorothy did not quite like being told that she was wholesome; but, nevertheless, she was thankful to her aunt. "I'll tell you what it is," continued Miss Stanbury; "I hate all mysteries, especially with those I love. I've saved two thousand pounds, which I've put you down for in my will. Now, if you and he can make it up together, I'll give you the money at once. There's no knowing how often an old woman may alter her will; but when you've got a thing, you've got it. Mr. Gibson would know the meaning of a bird in the hand as well as anybody. Now those girls at Heavitree will never have above a few hundreds each, and not that while their mother lives." Dorothy made one little attempt at squeezing her aunt's hand, wishing to thank her aunt for this affectionate generosity; but she had hardly accomplished the squeeze, when she desisted, feeling strangely averse to any acknowledgment of such a boon as that which had been offered to her. "And now, good night, my dear. If I did not think you a very sensible young woman, I should not trust you by saying all this." Then they parted, and Dorothy soon found herself alone in her bedroom. To have a husband of her own, a perfect gentleman too, and a clergyman;--and to go to him with a fortune! She believed that two thousand pounds represented nearly a hundred a year. It was a large fortune in those parts,--according to her understanding of ladies' fortunes. And that she, the humblest of the humble, should be selected for so honourable a position! She had never quite known, quite understood as yet, whether she had made good her footing in her aunt's house in a manner pleasant to her aunt. More than once or twice she had spoken even of going back to her mother, and things had been said which had almost made her think that her aunt had been angry with her. But now, after a month or two of joint residence, her aunt was offering to her--two thousand pounds and a husband! But was it within her aunt's power to offer to her the husband? Mr. Gibson had always been very civil to her. She had spoken more to Mr. Gibson than to any other man in Exeter. But it had never occurred to her for a moment that Mr. Gibson had any special liking for her. Was it probable that he would ever entertain any feeling of that kind for her? It certainly had occurred to her before now that Mr. Gibson was sometimes bored by the Miss Frenches;--but then gentlemen do get bored by ladies. And at last she asked herself another question,--had she any special liking for Mr. Gibson? As far as she understood such matters everything was blank there. Thinking of that other question, she went to sleep. CHAPTER XXIII. COLONEL OSBORNE AND MR. BOZZLE RETURN TO LONDON. Hugh Stanbury went down on the Saturday, by the early express to Exeter, on his road to Lessboro'. He took his ticket through to Lessboro', not purposing to stay at Exeter; but, from the exigencies of the various trains, it was necessary that he should remain for half an hour at the Exeter Station. This took place on the Saturday, and Colonel Osborne's visit to the Clock House had been made on the Friday. Colonel Osborne had returned to Lessboro', had slept again at Mrs. Clegg's house, and returned to London on the Saturday. It so happened that he also was obliged to spend half an hour at the Exeter Station, and that his half-hour, and Hugh Stanbury's half-hour, were one and the same. They met, therefore, as a matter of course, upon the platform. Stanbury was the first to see the other, and he found that he must determine on the spur of the moment what he would say, and what he would do. He had received no direct commission from Trevelyan as to his meeting with Colonel Osborne. Trevelyan had declared that, as to the matter of quarrelling, he meant to retain the privilege of doing that for himself; but Stanbury had quite understood that this was only the vague expression of an angry man. The Colonel had taken a glass of sherry, and had lighted a cigar, and was quite comfortable,--having thrown aside, for a time, that consciousness of the futility of his journey which had perplexed him,--when Stanbury accosted him. "What! Mr. Stanbury,--how do you do? Fine day, isn't it? Are you going up or down?" "I'm going to see my own people at Nuncombe Putney, a village beyond Lessboro'," said Hugh. "Ah;--indeed." Colonel Osborne of course perceived at once that as this man was going to the house at which he had just been visiting, it would be better that he should himself explain what he had done. If he were to allow this mention of Nuncombe Putney to pass without saying that he himself had been there, he would be convicted of at least some purpose of secrecy in what he had been doing. "Very strange," said he; "I was at Nuncombe Putney myself yesterday." "I know you were," said Stanbury. "And how did you know it?" There had been a tone of anger in Stanbury's voice which Colonel Osborne had at once appreciated, and which made him assume a similar tone. As they spoke there was a man standing in a corner close by the bookstall, with his eye upon them, and that man was Bozzle, the ex-policeman,--who was doing his duty with sedulous activity by seeing "the Colonel" back to London. Now Bozzle did not know Hugh Stanbury, and was angry with himself that he should be so ignorant. It is the pride of a detective ex-policeman to know everybody that comes in his way. "Well, I had been so informed. My friend Trevelyan knew that you were there,--or that you were going there." "I don't care who knew that I was going there," said the Colonel. "I won't pretend to understand how that may be, Colonel Osborne; but I think you must be aware, after what took place in Curzon Street, that it would have been better that you should not have attempted to see Mrs. Trevelyan. Whether you have seen her I do not know." "What business is it of yours, Mr. Stanbury, whether I have seen that lady or not?" "Unhappily for me, her husband has made it my business." "Very unhappily for you, I should say." "And the lady is staying at my mother's house." "I presume the lady is not a prisoner in your mother's house, and that your mother's hospitality is not so restricted but that her guest may see an old friend under her roof." This Colonel Osborne said with an assumed look of almost righteous indignation, which was not at all lost upon Bozzle. They had returned back towards the bookstall, and Bozzle, with his eyes fixed on a copy of the "D. R." which he had just bought, was straining his ears to the utmost to catch what was being said. "You best know whether you have seen her or not." "I have seen her." "Then I shall take leave to tell you, Colonel Osborne, that you have acted in a most unfriendly way, and have done that which must tend to keep an affectionate husband apart from his wife." "Sir, I don't at all understand this kind of thing addressed to me. The father of the lady you are speaking of has been my most intimate friend for thirty years." After all, the Colonel was a mean man when he could take pride in his youth, and defend himself on the score of his age, in one and the same proceeding. "I have nothing further to say," replied Stanbury. "You have said too much already, Mr. Stanbury." "I think not, Colonel Osborne. You have, I fear, done an incredible deal of mischief by going to Nuncombe Putney; and, after all that you have heard on the subject, you must have known that it would be mischievous. I cannot understand how you can | affection | How many times the word 'affection' appears in the text? | 2 |
very great,--so great that in its first flush she could not restrain herself from exhibiting it to Dorothy. "Well,--well,--what do you think, Dolly?" "About what, aunt? I don't know who the letter is from." "Nobody writes to me now so constant as your sister Priscilla. The letter is from Priscilla. Colonel Osborne has been at the Clock House, after all. I knew that he would be there. I knew it! I knew it!" Dorothy, when she heard this, was dumbfounded. She had rested her defence of her mother and sister on the impossibility of any such visit being admitted. According to her lights the coming of Colonel Osborne, after all that had been said, would be like the coming of Lucifer himself. The Colonel was, to her imagination, a horrible roaring lion. She had no idea that the erratic manoeuvres of such a beast might be milder and more innocent than the wooing of any turtle-dove. She would have asked whether the roaring lion had gone away again, and, if so, whether he had taken his prey with him, were it not that she was too much frightened at the moment to ask any question. That her mother and sister should have been wilfully concerned in such iniquity was quite incredible to her, but yet she did not know how to defend them. "But are you quite sure of it, Aunt Stanbury? May there not be another mistake?" "No mistake this time, I think, my dear. Any way, Priscilla says that he is there." Now in this there was a mistake. Priscilla had said nothing of the kind. "You don't mean that he is staying at the Clock House, Aunt Stanbury?" "I don't know where he is now. I'm not his keeper. And, I'm glad to say, I'm not the lady's keeper either. Ah, me! It's a bad business. You can't touch pitch and not be defiled, my dear. If your mother wanted the Clock House, I would sooner have taken it for her myself than that all this should have happened,--for the family's sake." But Miss Stanbury, when she was alone, and when she had read her niece's three letters again and again, began to understand something of Priscilla's honesty, and began also to perceive that there might have been a great difficulty respecting the Colonel, for which neither her niece nor her sister-in-law could fairly be held to be responsible. It was perhaps the plainest characteristic of all the Stanburys that they were never wilfully dishonest. Ignorant, prejudiced, and passionate they might be. In her anger Miss Stanbury, of Exeter, could be almost malicious; and her niece at Nuncombe Putney was very like her aunt. Each could say most cruel things, most unjust things, when actuated by a mistaken consciousness of perfect right on her own side. But neither of them could lie,--even by silence. Let an error be brought home to either of them,--so as to be acknowledged at home,--and the error would be assuredly confessed aloud. And, indeed, with differences in the shades, Hugh and Dorothy were of the same nature. They were possessed of sweeter tempers than their aunt and sister, but they were filled with the same eager readiness to believe themselves to be right,--and to own themselves to others to be wrong, when they had been constrained to make such confession to themselves. The chances of life, and something probably of inner nature, had made Dorothy mild and obedient; whereas, in regard to Hugh, the circumstances of his life and disposition had made him obstinate and self-reliant. But in all was to be found the same belief in self,--which amounted almost to conceit,--the same warmth of affection, and the same love of justice. When Miss Stanbury had again perused the correspondence, and had come to see, dimly, how things had gone at Nuncombe Putney,--when the conviction came upon her mind that Priscilla had entertained a horror as to the coming of this Colonel equal to that which she herself had felt,--when her imagination painted to her all that her niece had suffered, her heart was softened somewhat. She had declared to Dorothy that pitch, if touched, would certainly defile; and she had, at first, intended to send the same opinion, couched in very forcible words, to her correspondents at the Clock House. They should not continue to go astray for want of being told that they were going astray. It must be acknowledged, too, that there was a certain amount of ignoble wrath in the bosom of Miss Stanbury because her sister-in-law had taken the Clock House. She had never been told, and had not even condescended to ask Dorothy, whether the house was taken and paid for by her nephew on behalf of his mother, or whether it was paid for by Mr. Trevelyan on behalf of his wife. In the latter case, Mrs. Stanbury would, she thought, be little more than an upper servant, or keeper,--as she expressed it to herself. Such an arrangement appeared to her to be quite disgraceful in a Stanbury; but yet she believed that such must be the existing arrangement, as she could not bring herself to conceive that Hugh Stanbury could keep such an establishment over his mother's head out of money earned by writing for a penny newspaper. There would be a triumph of democracy in this which would vanquish her altogether. She had, therefore, been anxious enough to trample on Priscilla and upon all the affairs of the Clock House; but yet she had been unable to ignore the nobility of Priscilla's truth, and having acknowledged it to herself she found herself compelled to acknowledge it aloud. She sat down to think in silence, and it was not till she had fortified herself by her first draught of beer, and till she had finished her first portion of bread and cheese, that she spoke. "I have written to your sister herself, this time," she said. "I don't know that I ever wrote a line to her before in my life." "Poor Priscilla!" Dorothy did not mean to be severe on her aunt, either in regard to the letters which had not been written, or to the one letter which now had been written. But Dorothy pitied her sister, whom she felt to be in trouble. "Well; I don't know about her being so poor. Priscilla, I'll be bound, thinks as well of herself as any of us do." "She'd cut her fingers off before she'd mean to do wrong," said Dorothy. "But what does that come to? What's the good of that? It isn't meaning to do right that will save us. For aught I know, the Radicals may mean to do right. Mr. Beales means to do right--perhaps." "But, aunt,--if everybody did the best they could?" "Tush, my dear! you are getting beyond your depth. There are such things still, thank God! as spiritual pastors and masters. Entrust yourself to them. Do what they think right." Now if aught were known in Exeter of Miss Stanbury, this was known,--that if any clergyman volunteered to give to her, unasked and uninvited, counsel, either ghostly or bodily, that clergyman would be sent from her presence with a wigging which he would not soon forget. The thing had been tried more than once, and the wigging had been complete. There was no more attentive listener in church than Miss Stanbury; and she would, now and again, appeal to a clergyman on some knotty point. But for the ordinary authority of spiritual pastors and masters she shewed more of abstract reverence than of practical obedience. "I'm sure Priscilla does the best she can," said Dorothy, going back to the old subject. "Ah,--well,--yes. What I want to say about Priscilla is this. It is a thousand pities she is so obstinate, so pig-headed, so certain that she can manage everything for herself better than anybody else can for her." Miss Stanbury was striving to say something good of her niece, but found the task to be difficult and distasteful to her. "She has managed for mamma ever so many years; and since she took it we have hardly ever been in debt," said Dorothy. "She'll do all that, I don't doubt. I don't suppose she cares much for ribbons and false hair for herself." "Who? Priscilla! The idea of Priscilla with false hair!" "I dare say not;--I dare say not. I do not think she'd spend her mother's money on things of that kind." "Aunt Stanbury, you don't know her." "Ah; very well. Perhaps I don't. But, come, my dear, you are very hard upon me, and very anxious to take your sister's part. And what is it all about? I've just written to her as civil a letter as one woman ever wrote to another. And if I had chosen, I could have,--could have,--h--m--m." Miss Stanbury, as she hesitated for words in which to complete her sentence, revelled in the strength of the vituperation which she could have poured upon her niece's head, had she chosen to write her last letter about Colonel Osborne in her severe strain. "If you have written kindly to her, I am so much obliged to you," said Dorothy. "The truth is, Priscilla has meant to be right. Meaning won't go for much when the account is taken, unless the meaning comes from a proper source. But the poor girl has done as well as she has known how. I believe it is Hugh's fault more than anybody else's." This accusation was not pleasant to Dorothy, but she was too intent just now on Priscilla's case to defend her brother. "That man never ought to have been there; and that woman never ought to have been there. There cannot be a doubt about that. If Priscilla were sitting there opposite to me, she would own as much. I am sure she would." Miss Stanbury was quite right if she meant to assert that Priscilla had owned as much to herself. "And because I think so, I am willing to forgive her part in the matter. To me, personally, she has always been rude,--most uncourteous,--and,--and,--and unlike a younger woman to an older one, and an aunt, and all that. I suppose it is because she hates me." "Oh, no, Aunt Stanbury!" "My dear, I suppose it is. Why else should she treat me in such a way? But I do believe of her that she would rather eat an honest, dry crust, than dishonest cake and ale." "She would rather starve than pick up a crumb that was dishonest," said Dorothy, fairly bursting out into tears. "I believe it. I do believe it. There; what more can I say? Clock House, indeed! What matter what house you live in, so that you can pay the rent of it honestly?" "But the rent is paid--honestly," said Dorothy, amidst her sobs. "It's paid, I don't doubt. I dare say the woman's husband and your brother see to that among them. Oh, that my boy, Hugh, as he used to be, should have brought us all to this! But there's no knowing what they won't do among them. Reform, indeed! Murder, sacrilege, adultery, treason, atheism;--that's what Reform means; besides every kind of nastiness under the sun." In which latter category Miss Stanbury intended especially to include bad printer's ink, and paper made of straw. The reader may as well see the letter which was as civil a letter as ever one woman wrote to another, so that the collection of the Stanbury correspondence may be made perfect. The Close, August 6, 186--. MY DEAR NIECE, Your letter has not astonished me nearly as much as you expected it would. I am an older woman than you, and, though you will not believe it, I have seen more of the world. I knew that the gentleman would come after the lady. Such gentlemen always do go after their ladies. As for yourself, I can see all that you have done, and pretty nearly hear all that you have said, as plain as a pike-staff. I do you the credit of believing that the plan is none of your making. I know who made the plan, and a very bad plan it is. As to my former letters and the other man, I understand all about it. You were very angry that I should accuse you of having this man at the house; and you were right to be angry. I respect you for having been angry. But what does all that say as to his coming,--now that he has come? If you will consent to take an old woman's advice, get rid of the whole boiling of them. I say it in firm love and friendship, for I am,-- Your affectionate aunt, JEMIMA STANBURY. The special vaunted courtesy of this letter consisted, no doubt, in the expression of respect which it contained, and in that declaration of affection with which it terminated. The epithet was one which Miss Stanbury would by no means use promiscuously in writing to her nearest relatives. She had not intended to use it when she commenced her letter to Priscilla. But the respect of which she had spoken had glowed, and had warmed itself into something of temporary love; and feeling at the moment that she was an affectionate aunt, Miss Stanbury had so put herself down in her letter. Having done such a deed she felt that Dorothy, though Dorothy knew nothing about it, ought in her gratitude to listen patiently to anything that she might now choose to say against Priscilla. But Dorothy was in truth very miserable, and in her misery wrote a long letter that afternoon to her mother,--which, however, it will not be necessary to place entire among the Stanbury records,--begging that she might be informed as to the true circumstances of the case. She did not say a word of censure in regard either to her mother or sister; but she expressed an opinion in the mildest words which she could use, that if anything had happened which had compromised their names since their residence at the Clock House, she, Dorothy, had better go home and join them. The meaning of which was that it would not become her to remain in the house in the Close, if the house in the Close would be disgraced by her presence. Poor Dorothy had taught herself to think that the iniquity of roaring lions spread itself very widely. In the afternoon she made some such proposition to her aunt in ambiguous terms. "Go home!" said Miss Stanbury. "Now?" "If you think it best, Aunt Stanbury." "And put yourself in the middle of all this iniquity and abomination! I don't suppose you want to know the woman?" "No, indeed!" "Or the man?" "Oh, Aunt Stanbury!" "It's my belief that no decent gentleman in Exeter would look at you again if you were to go and live among them at Nuncombe Putney while all this is going on. No, no. Let one of you be saved out of it, at least." Aunt Stanbury had more than once made use of expressions which brought the faintest touch of gentle pink up to her niece's cheeks. We must do Dorothy the justice of saying that she had never dreamed of being looked at by any gentleman, whether decent or indecent. Her life at Nuncombe Putney had been of such a nature, that though she knew that other girls were looked at, and even made love to, and that they got married and had children, no dim vision of such a career for herself had ever presented itself to her eyes. She had known very well that her mother and sister and herself were people apart,--ladies, and yet so extremely poor, that they could only maintain their rank by the most rigid seclusion. To live, and work unseen, was what the world had ordained for her. Then her call to Exeter had come upon her, and she had conceived that she was henceforth to be the humble companion of a very imperious old aunt. Her aunt, indeed, was imperious, but did not seem to require humility in her companion. All the good things that were eaten and drunk were divided between them with the strictest impartiality. Dorothy's cushion and hassock in the church and in the cathedral were the same as her aunt's. Her bed-room was made very comfortable for her. Her aunt never gave her any orders before company, and always spoke of her before the servants as one whom they were to obey and respect. Gradually Dorothy came to understand the meaning of this;--but her aunt would sometimes say things about young men which she did not quite understand. Could it be that her aunt supposed that any young man would come and wish to marry her,--her, Dorothy Stanbury? She herself had not quite so strong an aversion to men in general as that which Priscilla felt, but she had not as yet found that any of those whom she had seen at Exeter were peculiarly agreeable to her. Before she went to bed that night her aunt said a word to her which startled her more than she had ever been startled before. On that evening Miss Stanbury had a few friends to drink tea with her. There were Mr. and Mrs. Crumbie, and Mrs. MacHugh of course, and the Cheritons from Alphington, and the Miss Apjohns from Helion Villa, and old Mr. Powel all the way from Haldon, and two of the Wrights from their house in the Northernhay, and Mr. Gibson;--but the Miss Frenches from Heavitree were not there. "Why don't you have the Miss Frenches, aunt?" Dorothy had asked. "Bother the Miss Frenches! I'm not bound to have them every time. There's Camilla has been and got herself a band-box on the back of her head a great deal bigger than the place inside where her brains ought to be." But the band-box at the back of Camilla French's head was not the sole cause of the omission of the two sisters from the list of Miss Stanbury's visitors on this occasion. The party went off very much as usual. There were two whist tables, for Miss Stanbury could not bear to cut out. At other houses than her own, when there was cutting out, it was quite understood that Miss Stanbury was to be allowed to keep her place. "I'll go away, and sit out there by myself, if you like," she would say. But she was never thus banished; and at her own house she usually contrived that there should be no system of banishment. She would play dummy whist, preferring it to the four-handed game; and, when hard driven, and with a meet opponent, would not even despise double-dummy. It was told of her and of Mrs. MacHugh that they had played double-dummy for a whole evening together; and they who were given to calumny had declared that the candles on that evening had been lighted very early. On the present occasion a great many sixpenny points were scored, and much tea and cake were consumed. Mr. Gibson never played whist,--nor did Dorothy. That young John Wright and Mary Cheriton should do nothing but talk to each other was a thing of course, as they were to be married in a month or two. Then there was Ida Cheriton, who could not very well be left at home; and Mr. Gibson made himself pleasant to Dorothy and Ida Cheriton, instead of making himself pleasant to the two Miss Frenches. Gentlemen in provincial towns quite understand that, from the nature of social circumstances in the provinces, they should always be ready to be pleasant at least to a pair at a time. At a few minutes before twelve they were all gone, and then came the shock. "Dolly, my dear, what do you think of Mr. Gibson?" "Think of him, Aunt Stanbury?" "Yes; think of him;--think of him. I suppose you know how to think?" "He seems to me always to preach very drawling sermons." "Oh, bother his sermons! I don't care anything about his sermons now. He is a very good clergyman, and the Dean thinks very much about him." "I am glad of that, Aunt Stanbury." Then came the shock. "Don't you think it would be a very good thing if you were to become Mrs. Gibson?" It may be presumed that Miss Stanbury had assured herself that she could not make progress with Dorothy by "beating about the bush." There was an inaptitude in her niece to comprehend the advantages of the situations, which made some direct explanation absolutely necessary. Dorothy stood half-smiling, half-crying, when she heard the proposition, her cheeks suffused with that pink colour, and with both her hands extended with surprise. "I've been thinking about it ever since you've been here," said Miss Stanbury. "I think he likes Miss French," said Dorothy, in a whisper. "Which of them? I don't believe he likes them at all. Maybe, if they go on long enough, they may be able to toss up for him. But I don't think it of him. Of course they're after him, but he'll be too wise for them. And he's more of a fool than I take him to be if he don't prefer you to them." Dorothy remained quite silent. To such an address as this it was impossible that she should reply a word. It was incredible to her that any man should prefer herself to either of the young women in question; but she was too much confounded for the expression even of her humility. "At any rate you're wholesome, and pleasant and modest," said Miss Stanbury. Dorothy did not quite like being told that she was wholesome; but, nevertheless, she was thankful to her aunt. "I'll tell you what it is," continued Miss Stanbury; "I hate all mysteries, especially with those I love. I've saved two thousand pounds, which I've put you down for in my will. Now, if you and he can make it up together, I'll give you the money at once. There's no knowing how often an old woman may alter her will; but when you've got a thing, you've got it. Mr. Gibson would know the meaning of a bird in the hand as well as anybody. Now those girls at Heavitree will never have above a few hundreds each, and not that while their mother lives." Dorothy made one little attempt at squeezing her aunt's hand, wishing to thank her aunt for this affectionate generosity; but she had hardly accomplished the squeeze, when she desisted, feeling strangely averse to any acknowledgment of such a boon as that which had been offered to her. "And now, good night, my dear. If I did not think you a very sensible young woman, I should not trust you by saying all this." Then they parted, and Dorothy soon found herself alone in her bedroom. To have a husband of her own, a perfect gentleman too, and a clergyman;--and to go to him with a fortune! She believed that two thousand pounds represented nearly a hundred a year. It was a large fortune in those parts,--according to her understanding of ladies' fortunes. And that she, the humblest of the humble, should be selected for so honourable a position! She had never quite known, quite understood as yet, whether she had made good her footing in her aunt's house in a manner pleasant to her aunt. More than once or twice she had spoken even of going back to her mother, and things had been said which had almost made her think that her aunt had been angry with her. But now, after a month or two of joint residence, her aunt was offering to her--two thousand pounds and a husband! But was it within her aunt's power to offer to her the husband? Mr. Gibson had always been very civil to her. She had spoken more to Mr. Gibson than to any other man in Exeter. But it had never occurred to her for a moment that Mr. Gibson had any special liking for her. Was it probable that he would ever entertain any feeling of that kind for her? It certainly had occurred to her before now that Mr. Gibson was sometimes bored by the Miss Frenches;--but then gentlemen do get bored by ladies. And at last she asked herself another question,--had she any special liking for Mr. Gibson? As far as she understood such matters everything was blank there. Thinking of that other question, she went to sleep. CHAPTER XXIII. COLONEL OSBORNE AND MR. BOZZLE RETURN TO LONDON. Hugh Stanbury went down on the Saturday, by the early express to Exeter, on his road to Lessboro'. He took his ticket through to Lessboro', not purposing to stay at Exeter; but, from the exigencies of the various trains, it was necessary that he should remain for half an hour at the Exeter Station. This took place on the Saturday, and Colonel Osborne's visit to the Clock House had been made on the Friday. Colonel Osborne had returned to Lessboro', had slept again at Mrs. Clegg's house, and returned to London on the Saturday. It so happened that he also was obliged to spend half an hour at the Exeter Station, and that his half-hour, and Hugh Stanbury's half-hour, were one and the same. They met, therefore, as a matter of course, upon the platform. Stanbury was the first to see the other, and he found that he must determine on the spur of the moment what he would say, and what he would do. He had received no direct commission from Trevelyan as to his meeting with Colonel Osborne. Trevelyan had declared that, as to the matter of quarrelling, he meant to retain the privilege of doing that for himself; but Stanbury had quite understood that this was only the vague expression of an angry man. The Colonel had taken a glass of sherry, and had lighted a cigar, and was quite comfortable,--having thrown aside, for a time, that consciousness of the futility of his journey which had perplexed him,--when Stanbury accosted him. "What! Mr. Stanbury,--how do you do? Fine day, isn't it? Are you going up or down?" "I'm going to see my own people at Nuncombe Putney, a village beyond Lessboro'," said Hugh. "Ah;--indeed." Colonel Osborne of course perceived at once that as this man was going to the house at which he had just been visiting, it would be better that he should himself explain what he had done. If he were to allow this mention of Nuncombe Putney to pass without saying that he himself had been there, he would be convicted of at least some purpose of secrecy in what he had been doing. "Very strange," said he; "I was at Nuncombe Putney myself yesterday." "I know you were," said Stanbury. "And how did you know it?" There had been a tone of anger in Stanbury's voice which Colonel Osborne had at once appreciated, and which made him assume a similar tone. As they spoke there was a man standing in a corner close by the bookstall, with his eye upon them, and that man was Bozzle, the ex-policeman,--who was doing his duty with sedulous activity by seeing "the Colonel" back to London. Now Bozzle did not know Hugh Stanbury, and was angry with himself that he should be so ignorant. It is the pride of a detective ex-policeman to know everybody that comes in his way. "Well, I had been so informed. My friend Trevelyan knew that you were there,--or that you were going there." "I don't care who knew that I was going there," said the Colonel. "I won't pretend to understand how that may be, Colonel Osborne; but I think you must be aware, after what took place in Curzon Street, that it would have been better that you should not have attempted to see Mrs. Trevelyan. Whether you have seen her I do not know." "What business is it of yours, Mr. Stanbury, whether I have seen that lady or not?" "Unhappily for me, her husband has made it my business." "Very unhappily for you, I should say." "And the lady is staying at my mother's house." "I presume the lady is not a prisoner in your mother's house, and that your mother's hospitality is not so restricted but that her guest may see an old friend under her roof." This Colonel Osborne said with an assumed look of almost righteous indignation, which was not at all lost upon Bozzle. They had returned back towards the bookstall, and Bozzle, with his eyes fixed on a copy of the "D. R." which he had just bought, was straining his ears to the utmost to catch what was being said. "You best know whether you have seen her or not." "I have seen her." "Then I shall take leave to tell you, Colonel Osborne, that you have acted in a most unfriendly way, and have done that which must tend to keep an affectionate husband apart from his wife." "Sir, I don't at all understand this kind of thing addressed to me. The father of the lady you are speaking of has been my most intimate friend for thirty years." After all, the Colonel was a mean man when he could take pride in his youth, and defend himself on the score of his age, in one and the same proceeding. "I have nothing further to say," replied Stanbury. "You have said too much already, Mr. Stanbury." "I think not, Colonel Osborne. You have, I fear, done an incredible deal of mischief by going to Nuncombe Putney; and, after all that you have heard on the subject, you must have known that it would be mischievous. I cannot understand how you can | flush | How many times the word 'flush' appears in the text? | 1 |
very great,--so great that in its first flush she could not restrain herself from exhibiting it to Dorothy. "Well,--well,--what do you think, Dolly?" "About what, aunt? I don't know who the letter is from." "Nobody writes to me now so constant as your sister Priscilla. The letter is from Priscilla. Colonel Osborne has been at the Clock House, after all. I knew that he would be there. I knew it! I knew it!" Dorothy, when she heard this, was dumbfounded. She had rested her defence of her mother and sister on the impossibility of any such visit being admitted. According to her lights the coming of Colonel Osborne, after all that had been said, would be like the coming of Lucifer himself. The Colonel was, to her imagination, a horrible roaring lion. She had no idea that the erratic manoeuvres of such a beast might be milder and more innocent than the wooing of any turtle-dove. She would have asked whether the roaring lion had gone away again, and, if so, whether he had taken his prey with him, were it not that she was too much frightened at the moment to ask any question. That her mother and sister should have been wilfully concerned in such iniquity was quite incredible to her, but yet she did not know how to defend them. "But are you quite sure of it, Aunt Stanbury? May there not be another mistake?" "No mistake this time, I think, my dear. Any way, Priscilla says that he is there." Now in this there was a mistake. Priscilla had said nothing of the kind. "You don't mean that he is staying at the Clock House, Aunt Stanbury?" "I don't know where he is now. I'm not his keeper. And, I'm glad to say, I'm not the lady's keeper either. Ah, me! It's a bad business. You can't touch pitch and not be defiled, my dear. If your mother wanted the Clock House, I would sooner have taken it for her myself than that all this should have happened,--for the family's sake." But Miss Stanbury, when she was alone, and when she had read her niece's three letters again and again, began to understand something of Priscilla's honesty, and began also to perceive that there might have been a great difficulty respecting the Colonel, for which neither her niece nor her sister-in-law could fairly be held to be responsible. It was perhaps the plainest characteristic of all the Stanburys that they were never wilfully dishonest. Ignorant, prejudiced, and passionate they might be. In her anger Miss Stanbury, of Exeter, could be almost malicious; and her niece at Nuncombe Putney was very like her aunt. Each could say most cruel things, most unjust things, when actuated by a mistaken consciousness of perfect right on her own side. But neither of them could lie,--even by silence. Let an error be brought home to either of them,--so as to be acknowledged at home,--and the error would be assuredly confessed aloud. And, indeed, with differences in the shades, Hugh and Dorothy were of the same nature. They were possessed of sweeter tempers than their aunt and sister, but they were filled with the same eager readiness to believe themselves to be right,--and to own themselves to others to be wrong, when they had been constrained to make such confession to themselves. The chances of life, and something probably of inner nature, had made Dorothy mild and obedient; whereas, in regard to Hugh, the circumstances of his life and disposition had made him obstinate and self-reliant. But in all was to be found the same belief in self,--which amounted almost to conceit,--the same warmth of affection, and the same love of justice. When Miss Stanbury had again perused the correspondence, and had come to see, dimly, how things had gone at Nuncombe Putney,--when the conviction came upon her mind that Priscilla had entertained a horror as to the coming of this Colonel equal to that which she herself had felt,--when her imagination painted to her all that her niece had suffered, her heart was softened somewhat. She had declared to Dorothy that pitch, if touched, would certainly defile; and she had, at first, intended to send the same opinion, couched in very forcible words, to her correspondents at the Clock House. They should not continue to go astray for want of being told that they were going astray. It must be acknowledged, too, that there was a certain amount of ignoble wrath in the bosom of Miss Stanbury because her sister-in-law had taken the Clock House. She had never been told, and had not even condescended to ask Dorothy, whether the house was taken and paid for by her nephew on behalf of his mother, or whether it was paid for by Mr. Trevelyan on behalf of his wife. In the latter case, Mrs. Stanbury would, she thought, be little more than an upper servant, or keeper,--as she expressed it to herself. Such an arrangement appeared to her to be quite disgraceful in a Stanbury; but yet she believed that such must be the existing arrangement, as she could not bring herself to conceive that Hugh Stanbury could keep such an establishment over his mother's head out of money earned by writing for a penny newspaper. There would be a triumph of democracy in this which would vanquish her altogether. She had, therefore, been anxious enough to trample on Priscilla and upon all the affairs of the Clock House; but yet she had been unable to ignore the nobility of Priscilla's truth, and having acknowledged it to herself she found herself compelled to acknowledge it aloud. She sat down to think in silence, and it was not till she had fortified herself by her first draught of beer, and till she had finished her first portion of bread and cheese, that she spoke. "I have written to your sister herself, this time," she said. "I don't know that I ever wrote a line to her before in my life." "Poor Priscilla!" Dorothy did not mean to be severe on her aunt, either in regard to the letters which had not been written, or to the one letter which now had been written. But Dorothy pitied her sister, whom she felt to be in trouble. "Well; I don't know about her being so poor. Priscilla, I'll be bound, thinks as well of herself as any of us do." "She'd cut her fingers off before she'd mean to do wrong," said Dorothy. "But what does that come to? What's the good of that? It isn't meaning to do right that will save us. For aught I know, the Radicals may mean to do right. Mr. Beales means to do right--perhaps." "But, aunt,--if everybody did the best they could?" "Tush, my dear! you are getting beyond your depth. There are such things still, thank God! as spiritual pastors and masters. Entrust yourself to them. Do what they think right." Now if aught were known in Exeter of Miss Stanbury, this was known,--that if any clergyman volunteered to give to her, unasked and uninvited, counsel, either ghostly or bodily, that clergyman would be sent from her presence with a wigging which he would not soon forget. The thing had been tried more than once, and the wigging had been complete. There was no more attentive listener in church than Miss Stanbury; and she would, now and again, appeal to a clergyman on some knotty point. But for the ordinary authority of spiritual pastors and masters she shewed more of abstract reverence than of practical obedience. "I'm sure Priscilla does the best she can," said Dorothy, going back to the old subject. "Ah,--well,--yes. What I want to say about Priscilla is this. It is a thousand pities she is so obstinate, so pig-headed, so certain that she can manage everything for herself better than anybody else can for her." Miss Stanbury was striving to say something good of her niece, but found the task to be difficult and distasteful to her. "She has managed for mamma ever so many years; and since she took it we have hardly ever been in debt," said Dorothy. "She'll do all that, I don't doubt. I don't suppose she cares much for ribbons and false hair for herself." "Who? Priscilla! The idea of Priscilla with false hair!" "I dare say not;--I dare say not. I do not think she'd spend her mother's money on things of that kind." "Aunt Stanbury, you don't know her." "Ah; very well. Perhaps I don't. But, come, my dear, you are very hard upon me, and very anxious to take your sister's part. And what is it all about? I've just written to her as civil a letter as one woman ever wrote to another. And if I had chosen, I could have,--could have,--h--m--m." Miss Stanbury, as she hesitated for words in which to complete her sentence, revelled in the strength of the vituperation which she could have poured upon her niece's head, had she chosen to write her last letter about Colonel Osborne in her severe strain. "If you have written kindly to her, I am so much obliged to you," said Dorothy. "The truth is, Priscilla has meant to be right. Meaning won't go for much when the account is taken, unless the meaning comes from a proper source. But the poor girl has done as well as she has known how. I believe it is Hugh's fault more than anybody else's." This accusation was not pleasant to Dorothy, but she was too intent just now on Priscilla's case to defend her brother. "That man never ought to have been there; and that woman never ought to have been there. There cannot be a doubt about that. If Priscilla were sitting there opposite to me, she would own as much. I am sure she would." Miss Stanbury was quite right if she meant to assert that Priscilla had owned as much to herself. "And because I think so, I am willing to forgive her part in the matter. To me, personally, she has always been rude,--most uncourteous,--and,--and,--and unlike a younger woman to an older one, and an aunt, and all that. I suppose it is because she hates me." "Oh, no, Aunt Stanbury!" "My dear, I suppose it is. Why else should she treat me in such a way? But I do believe of her that she would rather eat an honest, dry crust, than dishonest cake and ale." "She would rather starve than pick up a crumb that was dishonest," said Dorothy, fairly bursting out into tears. "I believe it. I do believe it. There; what more can I say? Clock House, indeed! What matter what house you live in, so that you can pay the rent of it honestly?" "But the rent is paid--honestly," said Dorothy, amidst her sobs. "It's paid, I don't doubt. I dare say the woman's husband and your brother see to that among them. Oh, that my boy, Hugh, as he used to be, should have brought us all to this! But there's no knowing what they won't do among them. Reform, indeed! Murder, sacrilege, adultery, treason, atheism;--that's what Reform means; besides every kind of nastiness under the sun." In which latter category Miss Stanbury intended especially to include bad printer's ink, and paper made of straw. The reader may as well see the letter which was as civil a letter as ever one woman wrote to another, so that the collection of the Stanbury correspondence may be made perfect. The Close, August 6, 186--. MY DEAR NIECE, Your letter has not astonished me nearly as much as you expected it would. I am an older woman than you, and, though you will not believe it, I have seen more of the world. I knew that the gentleman would come after the lady. Such gentlemen always do go after their ladies. As for yourself, I can see all that you have done, and pretty nearly hear all that you have said, as plain as a pike-staff. I do you the credit of believing that the plan is none of your making. I know who made the plan, and a very bad plan it is. As to my former letters and the other man, I understand all about it. You were very angry that I should accuse you of having this man at the house; and you were right to be angry. I respect you for having been angry. But what does all that say as to his coming,--now that he has come? If you will consent to take an old woman's advice, get rid of the whole boiling of them. I say it in firm love and friendship, for I am,-- Your affectionate aunt, JEMIMA STANBURY. The special vaunted courtesy of this letter consisted, no doubt, in the expression of respect which it contained, and in that declaration of affection with which it terminated. The epithet was one which Miss Stanbury would by no means use promiscuously in writing to her nearest relatives. She had not intended to use it when she commenced her letter to Priscilla. But the respect of which she had spoken had glowed, and had warmed itself into something of temporary love; and feeling at the moment that she was an affectionate aunt, Miss Stanbury had so put herself down in her letter. Having done such a deed she felt that Dorothy, though Dorothy knew nothing about it, ought in her gratitude to listen patiently to anything that she might now choose to say against Priscilla. But Dorothy was in truth very miserable, and in her misery wrote a long letter that afternoon to her mother,--which, however, it will not be necessary to place entire among the Stanbury records,--begging that she might be informed as to the true circumstances of the case. She did not say a word of censure in regard either to her mother or sister; but she expressed an opinion in the mildest words which she could use, that if anything had happened which had compromised their names since their residence at the Clock House, she, Dorothy, had better go home and join them. The meaning of which was that it would not become her to remain in the house in the Close, if the house in the Close would be disgraced by her presence. Poor Dorothy had taught herself to think that the iniquity of roaring lions spread itself very widely. In the afternoon she made some such proposition to her aunt in ambiguous terms. "Go home!" said Miss Stanbury. "Now?" "If you think it best, Aunt Stanbury." "And put yourself in the middle of all this iniquity and abomination! I don't suppose you want to know the woman?" "No, indeed!" "Or the man?" "Oh, Aunt Stanbury!" "It's my belief that no decent gentleman in Exeter would look at you again if you were to go and live among them at Nuncombe Putney while all this is going on. No, no. Let one of you be saved out of it, at least." Aunt Stanbury had more than once made use of expressions which brought the faintest touch of gentle pink up to her niece's cheeks. We must do Dorothy the justice of saying that she had never dreamed of being looked at by any gentleman, whether decent or indecent. Her life at Nuncombe Putney had been of such a nature, that though she knew that other girls were looked at, and even made love to, and that they got married and had children, no dim vision of such a career for herself had ever presented itself to her eyes. She had known very well that her mother and sister and herself were people apart,--ladies, and yet so extremely poor, that they could only maintain their rank by the most rigid seclusion. To live, and work unseen, was what the world had ordained for her. Then her call to Exeter had come upon her, and she had conceived that she was henceforth to be the humble companion of a very imperious old aunt. Her aunt, indeed, was imperious, but did not seem to require humility in her companion. All the good things that were eaten and drunk were divided between them with the strictest impartiality. Dorothy's cushion and hassock in the church and in the cathedral were the same as her aunt's. Her bed-room was made very comfortable for her. Her aunt never gave her any orders before company, and always spoke of her before the servants as one whom they were to obey and respect. Gradually Dorothy came to understand the meaning of this;--but her aunt would sometimes say things about young men which she did not quite understand. Could it be that her aunt supposed that any young man would come and wish to marry her,--her, Dorothy Stanbury? She herself had not quite so strong an aversion to men in general as that which Priscilla felt, but she had not as yet found that any of those whom she had seen at Exeter were peculiarly agreeable to her. Before she went to bed that night her aunt said a word to her which startled her more than she had ever been startled before. On that evening Miss Stanbury had a few friends to drink tea with her. There were Mr. and Mrs. Crumbie, and Mrs. MacHugh of course, and the Cheritons from Alphington, and the Miss Apjohns from Helion Villa, and old Mr. Powel all the way from Haldon, and two of the Wrights from their house in the Northernhay, and Mr. Gibson;--but the Miss Frenches from Heavitree were not there. "Why don't you have the Miss Frenches, aunt?" Dorothy had asked. "Bother the Miss Frenches! I'm not bound to have them every time. There's Camilla has been and got herself a band-box on the back of her head a great deal bigger than the place inside where her brains ought to be." But the band-box at the back of Camilla French's head was not the sole cause of the omission of the two sisters from the list of Miss Stanbury's visitors on this occasion. The party went off very much as usual. There were two whist tables, for Miss Stanbury could not bear to cut out. At other houses than her own, when there was cutting out, it was quite understood that Miss Stanbury was to be allowed to keep her place. "I'll go away, and sit out there by myself, if you like," she would say. But she was never thus banished; and at her own house she usually contrived that there should be no system of banishment. She would play dummy whist, preferring it to the four-handed game; and, when hard driven, and with a meet opponent, would not even despise double-dummy. It was told of her and of Mrs. MacHugh that they had played double-dummy for a whole evening together; and they who were given to calumny had declared that the candles on that evening had been lighted very early. On the present occasion a great many sixpenny points were scored, and much tea and cake were consumed. Mr. Gibson never played whist,--nor did Dorothy. That young John Wright and Mary Cheriton should do nothing but talk to each other was a thing of course, as they were to be married in a month or two. Then there was Ida Cheriton, who could not very well be left at home; and Mr. Gibson made himself pleasant to Dorothy and Ida Cheriton, instead of making himself pleasant to the two Miss Frenches. Gentlemen in provincial towns quite understand that, from the nature of social circumstances in the provinces, they should always be ready to be pleasant at least to a pair at a time. At a few minutes before twelve they were all gone, and then came the shock. "Dolly, my dear, what do you think of Mr. Gibson?" "Think of him, Aunt Stanbury?" "Yes; think of him;--think of him. I suppose you know how to think?" "He seems to me always to preach very drawling sermons." "Oh, bother his sermons! I don't care anything about his sermons now. He is a very good clergyman, and the Dean thinks very much about him." "I am glad of that, Aunt Stanbury." Then came the shock. "Don't you think it would be a very good thing if you were to become Mrs. Gibson?" It may be presumed that Miss Stanbury had assured herself that she could not make progress with Dorothy by "beating about the bush." There was an inaptitude in her niece to comprehend the advantages of the situations, which made some direct explanation absolutely necessary. Dorothy stood half-smiling, half-crying, when she heard the proposition, her cheeks suffused with that pink colour, and with both her hands extended with surprise. "I've been thinking about it ever since you've been here," said Miss Stanbury. "I think he likes Miss French," said Dorothy, in a whisper. "Which of them? I don't believe he likes them at all. Maybe, if they go on long enough, they may be able to toss up for him. But I don't think it of him. Of course they're after him, but he'll be too wise for them. And he's more of a fool than I take him to be if he don't prefer you to them." Dorothy remained quite silent. To such an address as this it was impossible that she should reply a word. It was incredible to her that any man should prefer herself to either of the young women in question; but she was too much confounded for the expression even of her humility. "At any rate you're wholesome, and pleasant and modest," said Miss Stanbury. Dorothy did not quite like being told that she was wholesome; but, nevertheless, she was thankful to her aunt. "I'll tell you what it is," continued Miss Stanbury; "I hate all mysteries, especially with those I love. I've saved two thousand pounds, which I've put you down for in my will. Now, if you and he can make it up together, I'll give you the money at once. There's no knowing how often an old woman may alter her will; but when you've got a thing, you've got it. Mr. Gibson would know the meaning of a bird in the hand as well as anybody. Now those girls at Heavitree will never have above a few hundreds each, and not that while their mother lives." Dorothy made one little attempt at squeezing her aunt's hand, wishing to thank her aunt for this affectionate generosity; but she had hardly accomplished the squeeze, when she desisted, feeling strangely averse to any acknowledgment of such a boon as that which had been offered to her. "And now, good night, my dear. If I did not think you a very sensible young woman, I should not trust you by saying all this." Then they parted, and Dorothy soon found herself alone in her bedroom. To have a husband of her own, a perfect gentleman too, and a clergyman;--and to go to him with a fortune! She believed that two thousand pounds represented nearly a hundred a year. It was a large fortune in those parts,--according to her understanding of ladies' fortunes. And that she, the humblest of the humble, should be selected for so honourable a position! She had never quite known, quite understood as yet, whether she had made good her footing in her aunt's house in a manner pleasant to her aunt. More than once or twice she had spoken even of going back to her mother, and things had been said which had almost made her think that her aunt had been angry with her. But now, after a month or two of joint residence, her aunt was offering to her--two thousand pounds and a husband! But was it within her aunt's power to offer to her the husband? Mr. Gibson had always been very civil to her. She had spoken more to Mr. Gibson than to any other man in Exeter. But it had never occurred to her for a moment that Mr. Gibson had any special liking for her. Was it probable that he would ever entertain any feeling of that kind for her? It certainly had occurred to her before now that Mr. Gibson was sometimes bored by the Miss Frenches;--but then gentlemen do get bored by ladies. And at last she asked herself another question,--had she any special liking for Mr. Gibson? As far as she understood such matters everything was blank there. Thinking of that other question, she went to sleep. CHAPTER XXIII. COLONEL OSBORNE AND MR. BOZZLE RETURN TO LONDON. Hugh Stanbury went down on the Saturday, by the early express to Exeter, on his road to Lessboro'. He took his ticket through to Lessboro', not purposing to stay at Exeter; but, from the exigencies of the various trains, it was necessary that he should remain for half an hour at the Exeter Station. This took place on the Saturday, and Colonel Osborne's visit to the Clock House had been made on the Friday. Colonel Osborne had returned to Lessboro', had slept again at Mrs. Clegg's house, and returned to London on the Saturday. It so happened that he also was obliged to spend half an hour at the Exeter Station, and that his half-hour, and Hugh Stanbury's half-hour, were one and the same. They met, therefore, as a matter of course, upon the platform. Stanbury was the first to see the other, and he found that he must determine on the spur of the moment what he would say, and what he would do. He had received no direct commission from Trevelyan as to his meeting with Colonel Osborne. Trevelyan had declared that, as to the matter of quarrelling, he meant to retain the privilege of doing that for himself; but Stanbury had quite understood that this was only the vague expression of an angry man. The Colonel had taken a glass of sherry, and had lighted a cigar, and was quite comfortable,--having thrown aside, for a time, that consciousness of the futility of his journey which had perplexed him,--when Stanbury accosted him. "What! Mr. Stanbury,--how do you do? Fine day, isn't it? Are you going up or down?" "I'm going to see my own people at Nuncombe Putney, a village beyond Lessboro'," said Hugh. "Ah;--indeed." Colonel Osborne of course perceived at once that as this man was going to the house at which he had just been visiting, it would be better that he should himself explain what he had done. If he were to allow this mention of Nuncombe Putney to pass without saying that he himself had been there, he would be convicted of at least some purpose of secrecy in what he had been doing. "Very strange," said he; "I was at Nuncombe Putney myself yesterday." "I know you were," said Stanbury. "And how did you know it?" There had been a tone of anger in Stanbury's voice which Colonel Osborne had at once appreciated, and which made him assume a similar tone. As they spoke there was a man standing in a corner close by the bookstall, with his eye upon them, and that man was Bozzle, the ex-policeman,--who was doing his duty with sedulous activity by seeing "the Colonel" back to London. Now Bozzle did not know Hugh Stanbury, and was angry with himself that he should be so ignorant. It is the pride of a detective ex-policeman to know everybody that comes in his way. "Well, I had been so informed. My friend Trevelyan knew that you were there,--or that you were going there." "I don't care who knew that I was going there," said the Colonel. "I won't pretend to understand how that may be, Colonel Osborne; but I think you must be aware, after what took place in Curzon Street, that it would have been better that you should not have attempted to see Mrs. Trevelyan. Whether you have seen her I do not know." "What business is it of yours, Mr. Stanbury, whether I have seen that lady or not?" "Unhappily for me, her husband has made it my business." "Very unhappily for you, I should say." "And the lady is staying at my mother's house." "I presume the lady is not a prisoner in your mother's house, and that your mother's hospitality is not so restricted but that her guest may see an old friend under her roof." This Colonel Osborne said with an assumed look of almost righteous indignation, which was not at all lost upon Bozzle. They had returned back towards the bookstall, and Bozzle, with his eyes fixed on a copy of the "D. R." which he had just bought, was straining his ears to the utmost to catch what was being said. "You best know whether you have seen her or not." "I have seen her." "Then I shall take leave to tell you, Colonel Osborne, that you have acted in a most unfriendly way, and have done that which must tend to keep an affectionate husband apart from his wife." "Sir, I don't at all understand this kind of thing addressed to me. The father of the lady you are speaking of has been my most intimate friend for thirty years." After all, the Colonel was a mean man when he could take pride in his youth, and defend himself on the score of his age, in one and the same proceeding. "I have nothing further to say," replied Stanbury. "You have said too much already, Mr. Stanbury." "I think not, Colonel Osborne. You have, I fear, done an incredible deal of mischief by going to Nuncombe Putney; and, after all that you have heard on the subject, you must have known that it would be mischievous. I cannot understand how you can | whether | How many times the word 'whether' appears in the text? | 1 |
very great,--so great that in its first flush she could not restrain herself from exhibiting it to Dorothy. "Well,--well,--what do you think, Dolly?" "About what, aunt? I don't know who the letter is from." "Nobody writes to me now so constant as your sister Priscilla. The letter is from Priscilla. Colonel Osborne has been at the Clock House, after all. I knew that he would be there. I knew it! I knew it!" Dorothy, when she heard this, was dumbfounded. She had rested her defence of her mother and sister on the impossibility of any such visit being admitted. According to her lights the coming of Colonel Osborne, after all that had been said, would be like the coming of Lucifer himself. The Colonel was, to her imagination, a horrible roaring lion. She had no idea that the erratic manoeuvres of such a beast might be milder and more innocent than the wooing of any turtle-dove. She would have asked whether the roaring lion had gone away again, and, if so, whether he had taken his prey with him, were it not that she was too much frightened at the moment to ask any question. That her mother and sister should have been wilfully concerned in such iniquity was quite incredible to her, but yet she did not know how to defend them. "But are you quite sure of it, Aunt Stanbury? May there not be another mistake?" "No mistake this time, I think, my dear. Any way, Priscilla says that he is there." Now in this there was a mistake. Priscilla had said nothing of the kind. "You don't mean that he is staying at the Clock House, Aunt Stanbury?" "I don't know where he is now. I'm not his keeper. And, I'm glad to say, I'm not the lady's keeper either. Ah, me! It's a bad business. You can't touch pitch and not be defiled, my dear. If your mother wanted the Clock House, I would sooner have taken it for her myself than that all this should have happened,--for the family's sake." But Miss Stanbury, when she was alone, and when she had read her niece's three letters again and again, began to understand something of Priscilla's honesty, and began also to perceive that there might have been a great difficulty respecting the Colonel, for which neither her niece nor her sister-in-law could fairly be held to be responsible. It was perhaps the plainest characteristic of all the Stanburys that they were never wilfully dishonest. Ignorant, prejudiced, and passionate they might be. In her anger Miss Stanbury, of Exeter, could be almost malicious; and her niece at Nuncombe Putney was very like her aunt. Each could say most cruel things, most unjust things, when actuated by a mistaken consciousness of perfect right on her own side. But neither of them could lie,--even by silence. Let an error be brought home to either of them,--so as to be acknowledged at home,--and the error would be assuredly confessed aloud. And, indeed, with differences in the shades, Hugh and Dorothy were of the same nature. They were possessed of sweeter tempers than their aunt and sister, but they were filled with the same eager readiness to believe themselves to be right,--and to own themselves to others to be wrong, when they had been constrained to make such confession to themselves. The chances of life, and something probably of inner nature, had made Dorothy mild and obedient; whereas, in regard to Hugh, the circumstances of his life and disposition had made him obstinate and self-reliant. But in all was to be found the same belief in self,--which amounted almost to conceit,--the same warmth of affection, and the same love of justice. When Miss Stanbury had again perused the correspondence, and had come to see, dimly, how things had gone at Nuncombe Putney,--when the conviction came upon her mind that Priscilla had entertained a horror as to the coming of this Colonel equal to that which she herself had felt,--when her imagination painted to her all that her niece had suffered, her heart was softened somewhat. She had declared to Dorothy that pitch, if touched, would certainly defile; and she had, at first, intended to send the same opinion, couched in very forcible words, to her correspondents at the Clock House. They should not continue to go astray for want of being told that they were going astray. It must be acknowledged, too, that there was a certain amount of ignoble wrath in the bosom of Miss Stanbury because her sister-in-law had taken the Clock House. She had never been told, and had not even condescended to ask Dorothy, whether the house was taken and paid for by her nephew on behalf of his mother, or whether it was paid for by Mr. Trevelyan on behalf of his wife. In the latter case, Mrs. Stanbury would, she thought, be little more than an upper servant, or keeper,--as she expressed it to herself. Such an arrangement appeared to her to be quite disgraceful in a Stanbury; but yet she believed that such must be the existing arrangement, as she could not bring herself to conceive that Hugh Stanbury could keep such an establishment over his mother's head out of money earned by writing for a penny newspaper. There would be a triumph of democracy in this which would vanquish her altogether. She had, therefore, been anxious enough to trample on Priscilla and upon all the affairs of the Clock House; but yet she had been unable to ignore the nobility of Priscilla's truth, and having acknowledged it to herself she found herself compelled to acknowledge it aloud. She sat down to think in silence, and it was not till she had fortified herself by her first draught of beer, and till she had finished her first portion of bread and cheese, that she spoke. "I have written to your sister herself, this time," she said. "I don't know that I ever wrote a line to her before in my life." "Poor Priscilla!" Dorothy did not mean to be severe on her aunt, either in regard to the letters which had not been written, or to the one letter which now had been written. But Dorothy pitied her sister, whom she felt to be in trouble. "Well; I don't know about her being so poor. Priscilla, I'll be bound, thinks as well of herself as any of us do." "She'd cut her fingers off before she'd mean to do wrong," said Dorothy. "But what does that come to? What's the good of that? It isn't meaning to do right that will save us. For aught I know, the Radicals may mean to do right. Mr. Beales means to do right--perhaps." "But, aunt,--if everybody did the best they could?" "Tush, my dear! you are getting beyond your depth. There are such things still, thank God! as spiritual pastors and masters. Entrust yourself to them. Do what they think right." Now if aught were known in Exeter of Miss Stanbury, this was known,--that if any clergyman volunteered to give to her, unasked and uninvited, counsel, either ghostly or bodily, that clergyman would be sent from her presence with a wigging which he would not soon forget. The thing had been tried more than once, and the wigging had been complete. There was no more attentive listener in church than Miss Stanbury; and she would, now and again, appeal to a clergyman on some knotty point. But for the ordinary authority of spiritual pastors and masters she shewed more of abstract reverence than of practical obedience. "I'm sure Priscilla does the best she can," said Dorothy, going back to the old subject. "Ah,--well,--yes. What I want to say about Priscilla is this. It is a thousand pities she is so obstinate, so pig-headed, so certain that she can manage everything for herself better than anybody else can for her." Miss Stanbury was striving to say something good of her niece, but found the task to be difficult and distasteful to her. "She has managed for mamma ever so many years; and since she took it we have hardly ever been in debt," said Dorothy. "She'll do all that, I don't doubt. I don't suppose she cares much for ribbons and false hair for herself." "Who? Priscilla! The idea of Priscilla with false hair!" "I dare say not;--I dare say not. I do not think she'd spend her mother's money on things of that kind." "Aunt Stanbury, you don't know her." "Ah; very well. Perhaps I don't. But, come, my dear, you are very hard upon me, and very anxious to take your sister's part. And what is it all about? I've just written to her as civil a letter as one woman ever wrote to another. And if I had chosen, I could have,--could have,--h--m--m." Miss Stanbury, as she hesitated for words in which to complete her sentence, revelled in the strength of the vituperation which she could have poured upon her niece's head, had she chosen to write her last letter about Colonel Osborne in her severe strain. "If you have written kindly to her, I am so much obliged to you," said Dorothy. "The truth is, Priscilla has meant to be right. Meaning won't go for much when the account is taken, unless the meaning comes from a proper source. But the poor girl has done as well as she has known how. I believe it is Hugh's fault more than anybody else's." This accusation was not pleasant to Dorothy, but she was too intent just now on Priscilla's case to defend her brother. "That man never ought to have been there; and that woman never ought to have been there. There cannot be a doubt about that. If Priscilla were sitting there opposite to me, she would own as much. I am sure she would." Miss Stanbury was quite right if she meant to assert that Priscilla had owned as much to herself. "And because I think so, I am willing to forgive her part in the matter. To me, personally, she has always been rude,--most uncourteous,--and,--and,--and unlike a younger woman to an older one, and an aunt, and all that. I suppose it is because she hates me." "Oh, no, Aunt Stanbury!" "My dear, I suppose it is. Why else should she treat me in such a way? But I do believe of her that she would rather eat an honest, dry crust, than dishonest cake and ale." "She would rather starve than pick up a crumb that was dishonest," said Dorothy, fairly bursting out into tears. "I believe it. I do believe it. There; what more can I say? Clock House, indeed! What matter what house you live in, so that you can pay the rent of it honestly?" "But the rent is paid--honestly," said Dorothy, amidst her sobs. "It's paid, I don't doubt. I dare say the woman's husband and your brother see to that among them. Oh, that my boy, Hugh, as he used to be, should have brought us all to this! But there's no knowing what they won't do among them. Reform, indeed! Murder, sacrilege, adultery, treason, atheism;--that's what Reform means; besides every kind of nastiness under the sun." In which latter category Miss Stanbury intended especially to include bad printer's ink, and paper made of straw. The reader may as well see the letter which was as civil a letter as ever one woman wrote to another, so that the collection of the Stanbury correspondence may be made perfect. The Close, August 6, 186--. MY DEAR NIECE, Your letter has not astonished me nearly as much as you expected it would. I am an older woman than you, and, though you will not believe it, I have seen more of the world. I knew that the gentleman would come after the lady. Such gentlemen always do go after their ladies. As for yourself, I can see all that you have done, and pretty nearly hear all that you have said, as plain as a pike-staff. I do you the credit of believing that the plan is none of your making. I know who made the plan, and a very bad plan it is. As to my former letters and the other man, I understand all about it. You were very angry that I should accuse you of having this man at the house; and you were right to be angry. I respect you for having been angry. But what does all that say as to his coming,--now that he has come? If you will consent to take an old woman's advice, get rid of the whole boiling of them. I say it in firm love and friendship, for I am,-- Your affectionate aunt, JEMIMA STANBURY. The special vaunted courtesy of this letter consisted, no doubt, in the expression of respect which it contained, and in that declaration of affection with which it terminated. The epithet was one which Miss Stanbury would by no means use promiscuously in writing to her nearest relatives. She had not intended to use it when she commenced her letter to Priscilla. But the respect of which she had spoken had glowed, and had warmed itself into something of temporary love; and feeling at the moment that she was an affectionate aunt, Miss Stanbury had so put herself down in her letter. Having done such a deed she felt that Dorothy, though Dorothy knew nothing about it, ought in her gratitude to listen patiently to anything that she might now choose to say against Priscilla. But Dorothy was in truth very miserable, and in her misery wrote a long letter that afternoon to her mother,--which, however, it will not be necessary to place entire among the Stanbury records,--begging that she might be informed as to the true circumstances of the case. She did not say a word of censure in regard either to her mother or sister; but she expressed an opinion in the mildest words which she could use, that if anything had happened which had compromised their names since their residence at the Clock House, she, Dorothy, had better go home and join them. The meaning of which was that it would not become her to remain in the house in the Close, if the house in the Close would be disgraced by her presence. Poor Dorothy had taught herself to think that the iniquity of roaring lions spread itself very widely. In the afternoon she made some such proposition to her aunt in ambiguous terms. "Go home!" said Miss Stanbury. "Now?" "If you think it best, Aunt Stanbury." "And put yourself in the middle of all this iniquity and abomination! I don't suppose you want to know the woman?" "No, indeed!" "Or the man?" "Oh, Aunt Stanbury!" "It's my belief that no decent gentleman in Exeter would look at you again if you were to go and live among them at Nuncombe Putney while all this is going on. No, no. Let one of you be saved out of it, at least." Aunt Stanbury had more than once made use of expressions which brought the faintest touch of gentle pink up to her niece's cheeks. We must do Dorothy the justice of saying that she had never dreamed of being looked at by any gentleman, whether decent or indecent. Her life at Nuncombe Putney had been of such a nature, that though she knew that other girls were looked at, and even made love to, and that they got married and had children, no dim vision of such a career for herself had ever presented itself to her eyes. She had known very well that her mother and sister and herself were people apart,--ladies, and yet so extremely poor, that they could only maintain their rank by the most rigid seclusion. To live, and work unseen, was what the world had ordained for her. Then her call to Exeter had come upon her, and she had conceived that she was henceforth to be the humble companion of a very imperious old aunt. Her aunt, indeed, was imperious, but did not seem to require humility in her companion. All the good things that were eaten and drunk were divided between them with the strictest impartiality. Dorothy's cushion and hassock in the church and in the cathedral were the same as her aunt's. Her bed-room was made very comfortable for her. Her aunt never gave her any orders before company, and always spoke of her before the servants as one whom they were to obey and respect. Gradually Dorothy came to understand the meaning of this;--but her aunt would sometimes say things about young men which she did not quite understand. Could it be that her aunt supposed that any young man would come and wish to marry her,--her, Dorothy Stanbury? She herself had not quite so strong an aversion to men in general as that which Priscilla felt, but she had not as yet found that any of those whom she had seen at Exeter were peculiarly agreeable to her. Before she went to bed that night her aunt said a word to her which startled her more than she had ever been startled before. On that evening Miss Stanbury had a few friends to drink tea with her. There were Mr. and Mrs. Crumbie, and Mrs. MacHugh of course, and the Cheritons from Alphington, and the Miss Apjohns from Helion Villa, and old Mr. Powel all the way from Haldon, and two of the Wrights from their house in the Northernhay, and Mr. Gibson;--but the Miss Frenches from Heavitree were not there. "Why don't you have the Miss Frenches, aunt?" Dorothy had asked. "Bother the Miss Frenches! I'm not bound to have them every time. There's Camilla has been and got herself a band-box on the back of her head a great deal bigger than the place inside where her brains ought to be." But the band-box at the back of Camilla French's head was not the sole cause of the omission of the two sisters from the list of Miss Stanbury's visitors on this occasion. The party went off very much as usual. There were two whist tables, for Miss Stanbury could not bear to cut out. At other houses than her own, when there was cutting out, it was quite understood that Miss Stanbury was to be allowed to keep her place. "I'll go away, and sit out there by myself, if you like," she would say. But she was never thus banished; and at her own house she usually contrived that there should be no system of banishment. She would play dummy whist, preferring it to the four-handed game; and, when hard driven, and with a meet opponent, would not even despise double-dummy. It was told of her and of Mrs. MacHugh that they had played double-dummy for a whole evening together; and they who were given to calumny had declared that the candles on that evening had been lighted very early. On the present occasion a great many sixpenny points were scored, and much tea and cake were consumed. Mr. Gibson never played whist,--nor did Dorothy. That young John Wright and Mary Cheriton should do nothing but talk to each other was a thing of course, as they were to be married in a month or two. Then there was Ida Cheriton, who could not very well be left at home; and Mr. Gibson made himself pleasant to Dorothy and Ida Cheriton, instead of making himself pleasant to the two Miss Frenches. Gentlemen in provincial towns quite understand that, from the nature of social circumstances in the provinces, they should always be ready to be pleasant at least to a pair at a time. At a few minutes before twelve they were all gone, and then came the shock. "Dolly, my dear, what do you think of Mr. Gibson?" "Think of him, Aunt Stanbury?" "Yes; think of him;--think of him. I suppose you know how to think?" "He seems to me always to preach very drawling sermons." "Oh, bother his sermons! I don't care anything about his sermons now. He is a very good clergyman, and the Dean thinks very much about him." "I am glad of that, Aunt Stanbury." Then came the shock. "Don't you think it would be a very good thing if you were to become Mrs. Gibson?" It may be presumed that Miss Stanbury had assured herself that she could not make progress with Dorothy by "beating about the bush." There was an inaptitude in her niece to comprehend the advantages of the situations, which made some direct explanation absolutely necessary. Dorothy stood half-smiling, half-crying, when she heard the proposition, her cheeks suffused with that pink colour, and with both her hands extended with surprise. "I've been thinking about it ever since you've been here," said Miss Stanbury. "I think he likes Miss French," said Dorothy, in a whisper. "Which of them? I don't believe he likes them at all. Maybe, if they go on long enough, they may be able to toss up for him. But I don't think it of him. Of course they're after him, but he'll be too wise for them. And he's more of a fool than I take him to be if he don't prefer you to them." Dorothy remained quite silent. To such an address as this it was impossible that she should reply a word. It was incredible to her that any man should prefer herself to either of the young women in question; but she was too much confounded for the expression even of her humility. "At any rate you're wholesome, and pleasant and modest," said Miss Stanbury. Dorothy did not quite like being told that she was wholesome; but, nevertheless, she was thankful to her aunt. "I'll tell you what it is," continued Miss Stanbury; "I hate all mysteries, especially with those I love. I've saved two thousand pounds, which I've put you down for in my will. Now, if you and he can make it up together, I'll give you the money at once. There's no knowing how often an old woman may alter her will; but when you've got a thing, you've got it. Mr. Gibson would know the meaning of a bird in the hand as well as anybody. Now those girls at Heavitree will never have above a few hundreds each, and not that while their mother lives." Dorothy made one little attempt at squeezing her aunt's hand, wishing to thank her aunt for this affectionate generosity; but she had hardly accomplished the squeeze, when she desisted, feeling strangely averse to any acknowledgment of such a boon as that which had been offered to her. "And now, good night, my dear. If I did not think you a very sensible young woman, I should not trust you by saying all this." Then they parted, and Dorothy soon found herself alone in her bedroom. To have a husband of her own, a perfect gentleman too, and a clergyman;--and to go to him with a fortune! She believed that two thousand pounds represented nearly a hundred a year. It was a large fortune in those parts,--according to her understanding of ladies' fortunes. And that she, the humblest of the humble, should be selected for so honourable a position! She had never quite known, quite understood as yet, whether she had made good her footing in her aunt's house in a manner pleasant to her aunt. More than once or twice she had spoken even of going back to her mother, and things had been said which had almost made her think that her aunt had been angry with her. But now, after a month or two of joint residence, her aunt was offering to her--two thousand pounds and a husband! But was it within her aunt's power to offer to her the husband? Mr. Gibson had always been very civil to her. She had spoken more to Mr. Gibson than to any other man in Exeter. But it had never occurred to her for a moment that Mr. Gibson had any special liking for her. Was it probable that he would ever entertain any feeling of that kind for her? It certainly had occurred to her before now that Mr. Gibson was sometimes bored by the Miss Frenches;--but then gentlemen do get bored by ladies. And at last she asked herself another question,--had she any special liking for Mr. Gibson? As far as she understood such matters everything was blank there. Thinking of that other question, she went to sleep. CHAPTER XXIII. COLONEL OSBORNE AND MR. BOZZLE RETURN TO LONDON. Hugh Stanbury went down on the Saturday, by the early express to Exeter, on his road to Lessboro'. He took his ticket through to Lessboro', not purposing to stay at Exeter; but, from the exigencies of the various trains, it was necessary that he should remain for half an hour at the Exeter Station. This took place on the Saturday, and Colonel Osborne's visit to the Clock House had been made on the Friday. Colonel Osborne had returned to Lessboro', had slept again at Mrs. Clegg's house, and returned to London on the Saturday. It so happened that he also was obliged to spend half an hour at the Exeter Station, and that his half-hour, and Hugh Stanbury's half-hour, were one and the same. They met, therefore, as a matter of course, upon the platform. Stanbury was the first to see the other, and he found that he must determine on the spur of the moment what he would say, and what he would do. He had received no direct commission from Trevelyan as to his meeting with Colonel Osborne. Trevelyan had declared that, as to the matter of quarrelling, he meant to retain the privilege of doing that for himself; but Stanbury had quite understood that this was only the vague expression of an angry man. The Colonel had taken a glass of sherry, and had lighted a cigar, and was quite comfortable,--having thrown aside, for a time, that consciousness of the futility of his journey which had perplexed him,--when Stanbury accosted him. "What! Mr. Stanbury,--how do you do? Fine day, isn't it? Are you going up or down?" "I'm going to see my own people at Nuncombe Putney, a village beyond Lessboro'," said Hugh. "Ah;--indeed." Colonel Osborne of course perceived at once that as this man was going to the house at which he had just been visiting, it would be better that he should himself explain what he had done. If he were to allow this mention of Nuncombe Putney to pass without saying that he himself had been there, he would be convicted of at least some purpose of secrecy in what he had been doing. "Very strange," said he; "I was at Nuncombe Putney myself yesterday." "I know you were," said Stanbury. "And how did you know it?" There had been a tone of anger in Stanbury's voice which Colonel Osborne had at once appreciated, and which made him assume a similar tone. As they spoke there was a man standing in a corner close by the bookstall, with his eye upon them, and that man was Bozzle, the ex-policeman,--who was doing his duty with sedulous activity by seeing "the Colonel" back to London. Now Bozzle did not know Hugh Stanbury, and was angry with himself that he should be so ignorant. It is the pride of a detective ex-policeman to know everybody that comes in his way. "Well, I had been so informed. My friend Trevelyan knew that you were there,--or that you were going there." "I don't care who knew that I was going there," said the Colonel. "I won't pretend to understand how that may be, Colonel Osborne; but I think you must be aware, after what took place in Curzon Street, that it would have been better that you should not have attempted to see Mrs. Trevelyan. Whether you have seen her I do not know." "What business is it of yours, Mr. Stanbury, whether I have seen that lady or not?" "Unhappily for me, her husband has made it my business." "Very unhappily for you, I should say." "And the lady is staying at my mother's house." "I presume the lady is not a prisoner in your mother's house, and that your mother's hospitality is not so restricted but that her guest may see an old friend under her roof." This Colonel Osborne said with an assumed look of almost righteous indignation, which was not at all lost upon Bozzle. They had returned back towards the bookstall, and Bozzle, with his eyes fixed on a copy of the "D. R." which he had just bought, was straining his ears to the utmost to catch what was being said. "You best know whether you have seen her or not." "I have seen her." "Then I shall take leave to tell you, Colonel Osborne, that you have acted in a most unfriendly way, and have done that which must tend to keep an affectionate husband apart from his wife." "Sir, I don't at all understand this kind of thing addressed to me. The father of the lady you are speaking of has been my most intimate friend for thirty years." After all, the Colonel was a mean man when he could take pride in his youth, and defend himself on the score of his age, in one and the same proceeding. "I have nothing further to say," replied Stanbury. "You have said too much already, Mr. Stanbury." "I think not, Colonel Osborne. You have, I fear, done an incredible deal of mischief by going to Nuncombe Putney; and, after all that you have heard on the subject, you must have known that it would be mischievous. I cannot understand how you can | managed | How many times the word 'managed' appears in the text? | 1 |
very great,--so great that in its first flush she could not restrain herself from exhibiting it to Dorothy. "Well,--well,--what do you think, Dolly?" "About what, aunt? I don't know who the letter is from." "Nobody writes to me now so constant as your sister Priscilla. The letter is from Priscilla. Colonel Osborne has been at the Clock House, after all. I knew that he would be there. I knew it! I knew it!" Dorothy, when she heard this, was dumbfounded. She had rested her defence of her mother and sister on the impossibility of any such visit being admitted. According to her lights the coming of Colonel Osborne, after all that had been said, would be like the coming of Lucifer himself. The Colonel was, to her imagination, a horrible roaring lion. She had no idea that the erratic manoeuvres of such a beast might be milder and more innocent than the wooing of any turtle-dove. She would have asked whether the roaring lion had gone away again, and, if so, whether he had taken his prey with him, were it not that she was too much frightened at the moment to ask any question. That her mother and sister should have been wilfully concerned in such iniquity was quite incredible to her, but yet she did not know how to defend them. "But are you quite sure of it, Aunt Stanbury? May there not be another mistake?" "No mistake this time, I think, my dear. Any way, Priscilla says that he is there." Now in this there was a mistake. Priscilla had said nothing of the kind. "You don't mean that he is staying at the Clock House, Aunt Stanbury?" "I don't know where he is now. I'm not his keeper. And, I'm glad to say, I'm not the lady's keeper either. Ah, me! It's a bad business. You can't touch pitch and not be defiled, my dear. If your mother wanted the Clock House, I would sooner have taken it for her myself than that all this should have happened,--for the family's sake." But Miss Stanbury, when she was alone, and when she had read her niece's three letters again and again, began to understand something of Priscilla's honesty, and began also to perceive that there might have been a great difficulty respecting the Colonel, for which neither her niece nor her sister-in-law could fairly be held to be responsible. It was perhaps the plainest characteristic of all the Stanburys that they were never wilfully dishonest. Ignorant, prejudiced, and passionate they might be. In her anger Miss Stanbury, of Exeter, could be almost malicious; and her niece at Nuncombe Putney was very like her aunt. Each could say most cruel things, most unjust things, when actuated by a mistaken consciousness of perfect right on her own side. But neither of them could lie,--even by silence. Let an error be brought home to either of them,--so as to be acknowledged at home,--and the error would be assuredly confessed aloud. And, indeed, with differences in the shades, Hugh and Dorothy were of the same nature. They were possessed of sweeter tempers than their aunt and sister, but they were filled with the same eager readiness to believe themselves to be right,--and to own themselves to others to be wrong, when they had been constrained to make such confession to themselves. The chances of life, and something probably of inner nature, had made Dorothy mild and obedient; whereas, in regard to Hugh, the circumstances of his life and disposition had made him obstinate and self-reliant. But in all was to be found the same belief in self,--which amounted almost to conceit,--the same warmth of affection, and the same love of justice. When Miss Stanbury had again perused the correspondence, and had come to see, dimly, how things had gone at Nuncombe Putney,--when the conviction came upon her mind that Priscilla had entertained a horror as to the coming of this Colonel equal to that which she herself had felt,--when her imagination painted to her all that her niece had suffered, her heart was softened somewhat. She had declared to Dorothy that pitch, if touched, would certainly defile; and she had, at first, intended to send the same opinion, couched in very forcible words, to her correspondents at the Clock House. They should not continue to go astray for want of being told that they were going astray. It must be acknowledged, too, that there was a certain amount of ignoble wrath in the bosom of Miss Stanbury because her sister-in-law had taken the Clock House. She had never been told, and had not even condescended to ask Dorothy, whether the house was taken and paid for by her nephew on behalf of his mother, or whether it was paid for by Mr. Trevelyan on behalf of his wife. In the latter case, Mrs. Stanbury would, she thought, be little more than an upper servant, or keeper,--as she expressed it to herself. Such an arrangement appeared to her to be quite disgraceful in a Stanbury; but yet she believed that such must be the existing arrangement, as she could not bring herself to conceive that Hugh Stanbury could keep such an establishment over his mother's head out of money earned by writing for a penny newspaper. There would be a triumph of democracy in this which would vanquish her altogether. She had, therefore, been anxious enough to trample on Priscilla and upon all the affairs of the Clock House; but yet she had been unable to ignore the nobility of Priscilla's truth, and having acknowledged it to herself she found herself compelled to acknowledge it aloud. She sat down to think in silence, and it was not till she had fortified herself by her first draught of beer, and till she had finished her first portion of bread and cheese, that she spoke. "I have written to your sister herself, this time," she said. "I don't know that I ever wrote a line to her before in my life." "Poor Priscilla!" Dorothy did not mean to be severe on her aunt, either in regard to the letters which had not been written, or to the one letter which now had been written. But Dorothy pitied her sister, whom she felt to be in trouble. "Well; I don't know about her being so poor. Priscilla, I'll be bound, thinks as well of herself as any of us do." "She'd cut her fingers off before she'd mean to do wrong," said Dorothy. "But what does that come to? What's the good of that? It isn't meaning to do right that will save us. For aught I know, the Radicals may mean to do right. Mr. Beales means to do right--perhaps." "But, aunt,--if everybody did the best they could?" "Tush, my dear! you are getting beyond your depth. There are such things still, thank God! as spiritual pastors and masters. Entrust yourself to them. Do what they think right." Now if aught were known in Exeter of Miss Stanbury, this was known,--that if any clergyman volunteered to give to her, unasked and uninvited, counsel, either ghostly or bodily, that clergyman would be sent from her presence with a wigging which he would not soon forget. The thing had been tried more than once, and the wigging had been complete. There was no more attentive listener in church than Miss Stanbury; and she would, now and again, appeal to a clergyman on some knotty point. But for the ordinary authority of spiritual pastors and masters she shewed more of abstract reverence than of practical obedience. "I'm sure Priscilla does the best she can," said Dorothy, going back to the old subject. "Ah,--well,--yes. What I want to say about Priscilla is this. It is a thousand pities she is so obstinate, so pig-headed, so certain that she can manage everything for herself better than anybody else can for her." Miss Stanbury was striving to say something good of her niece, but found the task to be difficult and distasteful to her. "She has managed for mamma ever so many years; and since she took it we have hardly ever been in debt," said Dorothy. "She'll do all that, I don't doubt. I don't suppose she cares much for ribbons and false hair for herself." "Who? Priscilla! The idea of Priscilla with false hair!" "I dare say not;--I dare say not. I do not think she'd spend her mother's money on things of that kind." "Aunt Stanbury, you don't know her." "Ah; very well. Perhaps I don't. But, come, my dear, you are very hard upon me, and very anxious to take your sister's part. And what is it all about? I've just written to her as civil a letter as one woman ever wrote to another. And if I had chosen, I could have,--could have,--h--m--m." Miss Stanbury, as she hesitated for words in which to complete her sentence, revelled in the strength of the vituperation which she could have poured upon her niece's head, had she chosen to write her last letter about Colonel Osborne in her severe strain. "If you have written kindly to her, I am so much obliged to you," said Dorothy. "The truth is, Priscilla has meant to be right. Meaning won't go for much when the account is taken, unless the meaning comes from a proper source. But the poor girl has done as well as she has known how. I believe it is Hugh's fault more than anybody else's." This accusation was not pleasant to Dorothy, but she was too intent just now on Priscilla's case to defend her brother. "That man never ought to have been there; and that woman never ought to have been there. There cannot be a doubt about that. If Priscilla were sitting there opposite to me, she would own as much. I am sure she would." Miss Stanbury was quite right if she meant to assert that Priscilla had owned as much to herself. "And because I think so, I am willing to forgive her part in the matter. To me, personally, she has always been rude,--most uncourteous,--and,--and,--and unlike a younger woman to an older one, and an aunt, and all that. I suppose it is because she hates me." "Oh, no, Aunt Stanbury!" "My dear, I suppose it is. Why else should she treat me in such a way? But I do believe of her that she would rather eat an honest, dry crust, than dishonest cake and ale." "She would rather starve than pick up a crumb that was dishonest," said Dorothy, fairly bursting out into tears. "I believe it. I do believe it. There; what more can I say? Clock House, indeed! What matter what house you live in, so that you can pay the rent of it honestly?" "But the rent is paid--honestly," said Dorothy, amidst her sobs. "It's paid, I don't doubt. I dare say the woman's husband and your brother see to that among them. Oh, that my boy, Hugh, as he used to be, should have brought us all to this! But there's no knowing what they won't do among them. Reform, indeed! Murder, sacrilege, adultery, treason, atheism;--that's what Reform means; besides every kind of nastiness under the sun." In which latter category Miss Stanbury intended especially to include bad printer's ink, and paper made of straw. The reader may as well see the letter which was as civil a letter as ever one woman wrote to another, so that the collection of the Stanbury correspondence may be made perfect. The Close, August 6, 186--. MY DEAR NIECE, Your letter has not astonished me nearly as much as you expected it would. I am an older woman than you, and, though you will not believe it, I have seen more of the world. I knew that the gentleman would come after the lady. Such gentlemen always do go after their ladies. As for yourself, I can see all that you have done, and pretty nearly hear all that you have said, as plain as a pike-staff. I do you the credit of believing that the plan is none of your making. I know who made the plan, and a very bad plan it is. As to my former letters and the other man, I understand all about it. You were very angry that I should accuse you of having this man at the house; and you were right to be angry. I respect you for having been angry. But what does all that say as to his coming,--now that he has come? If you will consent to take an old woman's advice, get rid of the whole boiling of them. I say it in firm love and friendship, for I am,-- Your affectionate aunt, JEMIMA STANBURY. The special vaunted courtesy of this letter consisted, no doubt, in the expression of respect which it contained, and in that declaration of affection with which it terminated. The epithet was one which Miss Stanbury would by no means use promiscuously in writing to her nearest relatives. She had not intended to use it when she commenced her letter to Priscilla. But the respect of which she had spoken had glowed, and had warmed itself into something of temporary love; and feeling at the moment that she was an affectionate aunt, Miss Stanbury had so put herself down in her letter. Having done such a deed she felt that Dorothy, though Dorothy knew nothing about it, ought in her gratitude to listen patiently to anything that she might now choose to say against Priscilla. But Dorothy was in truth very miserable, and in her misery wrote a long letter that afternoon to her mother,--which, however, it will not be necessary to place entire among the Stanbury records,--begging that she might be informed as to the true circumstances of the case. She did not say a word of censure in regard either to her mother or sister; but she expressed an opinion in the mildest words which she could use, that if anything had happened which had compromised their names since their residence at the Clock House, she, Dorothy, had better go home and join them. The meaning of which was that it would not become her to remain in the house in the Close, if the house in the Close would be disgraced by her presence. Poor Dorothy had taught herself to think that the iniquity of roaring lions spread itself very widely. In the afternoon she made some such proposition to her aunt in ambiguous terms. "Go home!" said Miss Stanbury. "Now?" "If you think it best, Aunt Stanbury." "And put yourself in the middle of all this iniquity and abomination! I don't suppose you want to know the woman?" "No, indeed!" "Or the man?" "Oh, Aunt Stanbury!" "It's my belief that no decent gentleman in Exeter would look at you again if you were to go and live among them at Nuncombe Putney while all this is going on. No, no. Let one of you be saved out of it, at least." Aunt Stanbury had more than once made use of expressions which brought the faintest touch of gentle pink up to her niece's cheeks. We must do Dorothy the justice of saying that she had never dreamed of being looked at by any gentleman, whether decent or indecent. Her life at Nuncombe Putney had been of such a nature, that though she knew that other girls were looked at, and even made love to, and that they got married and had children, no dim vision of such a career for herself had ever presented itself to her eyes. She had known very well that her mother and sister and herself were people apart,--ladies, and yet so extremely poor, that they could only maintain their rank by the most rigid seclusion. To live, and work unseen, was what the world had ordained for her. Then her call to Exeter had come upon her, and she had conceived that she was henceforth to be the humble companion of a very imperious old aunt. Her aunt, indeed, was imperious, but did not seem to require humility in her companion. All the good things that were eaten and drunk were divided between them with the strictest impartiality. Dorothy's cushion and hassock in the church and in the cathedral were the same as her aunt's. Her bed-room was made very comfortable for her. Her aunt never gave her any orders before company, and always spoke of her before the servants as one whom they were to obey and respect. Gradually Dorothy came to understand the meaning of this;--but her aunt would sometimes say things about young men which she did not quite understand. Could it be that her aunt supposed that any young man would come and wish to marry her,--her, Dorothy Stanbury? She herself had not quite so strong an aversion to men in general as that which Priscilla felt, but she had not as yet found that any of those whom she had seen at Exeter were peculiarly agreeable to her. Before she went to bed that night her aunt said a word to her which startled her more than she had ever been startled before. On that evening Miss Stanbury had a few friends to drink tea with her. There were Mr. and Mrs. Crumbie, and Mrs. MacHugh of course, and the Cheritons from Alphington, and the Miss Apjohns from Helion Villa, and old Mr. Powel all the way from Haldon, and two of the Wrights from their house in the Northernhay, and Mr. Gibson;--but the Miss Frenches from Heavitree were not there. "Why don't you have the Miss Frenches, aunt?" Dorothy had asked. "Bother the Miss Frenches! I'm not bound to have them every time. There's Camilla has been and got herself a band-box on the back of her head a great deal bigger than the place inside where her brains ought to be." But the band-box at the back of Camilla French's head was not the sole cause of the omission of the two sisters from the list of Miss Stanbury's visitors on this occasion. The party went off very much as usual. There were two whist tables, for Miss Stanbury could not bear to cut out. At other houses than her own, when there was cutting out, it was quite understood that Miss Stanbury was to be allowed to keep her place. "I'll go away, and sit out there by myself, if you like," she would say. But she was never thus banished; and at her own house she usually contrived that there should be no system of banishment. She would play dummy whist, preferring it to the four-handed game; and, when hard driven, and with a meet opponent, would not even despise double-dummy. It was told of her and of Mrs. MacHugh that they had played double-dummy for a whole evening together; and they who were given to calumny had declared that the candles on that evening had been lighted very early. On the present occasion a great many sixpenny points were scored, and much tea and cake were consumed. Mr. Gibson never played whist,--nor did Dorothy. That young John Wright and Mary Cheriton should do nothing but talk to each other was a thing of course, as they were to be married in a month or two. Then there was Ida Cheriton, who could not very well be left at home; and Mr. Gibson made himself pleasant to Dorothy and Ida Cheriton, instead of making himself pleasant to the two Miss Frenches. Gentlemen in provincial towns quite understand that, from the nature of social circumstances in the provinces, they should always be ready to be pleasant at least to a pair at a time. At a few minutes before twelve they were all gone, and then came the shock. "Dolly, my dear, what do you think of Mr. Gibson?" "Think of him, Aunt Stanbury?" "Yes; think of him;--think of him. I suppose you know how to think?" "He seems to me always to preach very drawling sermons." "Oh, bother his sermons! I don't care anything about his sermons now. He is a very good clergyman, and the Dean thinks very much about him." "I am glad of that, Aunt Stanbury." Then came the shock. "Don't you think it would be a very good thing if you were to become Mrs. Gibson?" It may be presumed that Miss Stanbury had assured herself that she could not make progress with Dorothy by "beating about the bush." There was an inaptitude in her niece to comprehend the advantages of the situations, which made some direct explanation absolutely necessary. Dorothy stood half-smiling, half-crying, when she heard the proposition, her cheeks suffused with that pink colour, and with both her hands extended with surprise. "I've been thinking about it ever since you've been here," said Miss Stanbury. "I think he likes Miss French," said Dorothy, in a whisper. "Which of them? I don't believe he likes them at all. Maybe, if they go on long enough, they may be able to toss up for him. But I don't think it of him. Of course they're after him, but he'll be too wise for them. And he's more of a fool than I take him to be if he don't prefer you to them." Dorothy remained quite silent. To such an address as this it was impossible that she should reply a word. It was incredible to her that any man should prefer herself to either of the young women in question; but she was too much confounded for the expression even of her humility. "At any rate you're wholesome, and pleasant and modest," said Miss Stanbury. Dorothy did not quite like being told that she was wholesome; but, nevertheless, she was thankful to her aunt. "I'll tell you what it is," continued Miss Stanbury; "I hate all mysteries, especially with those I love. I've saved two thousand pounds, which I've put you down for in my will. Now, if you and he can make it up together, I'll give you the money at once. There's no knowing how often an old woman may alter her will; but when you've got a thing, you've got it. Mr. Gibson would know the meaning of a bird in the hand as well as anybody. Now those girls at Heavitree will never have above a few hundreds each, and not that while their mother lives." Dorothy made one little attempt at squeezing her aunt's hand, wishing to thank her aunt for this affectionate generosity; but she had hardly accomplished the squeeze, when she desisted, feeling strangely averse to any acknowledgment of such a boon as that which had been offered to her. "And now, good night, my dear. If I did not think you a very sensible young woman, I should not trust you by saying all this." Then they parted, and Dorothy soon found herself alone in her bedroom. To have a husband of her own, a perfect gentleman too, and a clergyman;--and to go to him with a fortune! She believed that two thousand pounds represented nearly a hundred a year. It was a large fortune in those parts,--according to her understanding of ladies' fortunes. And that she, the humblest of the humble, should be selected for so honourable a position! She had never quite known, quite understood as yet, whether she had made good her footing in her aunt's house in a manner pleasant to her aunt. More than once or twice she had spoken even of going back to her mother, and things had been said which had almost made her think that her aunt had been angry with her. But now, after a month or two of joint residence, her aunt was offering to her--two thousand pounds and a husband! But was it within her aunt's power to offer to her the husband? Mr. Gibson had always been very civil to her. She had spoken more to Mr. Gibson than to any other man in Exeter. But it had never occurred to her for a moment that Mr. Gibson had any special liking for her. Was it probable that he would ever entertain any feeling of that kind for her? It certainly had occurred to her before now that Mr. Gibson was sometimes bored by the Miss Frenches;--but then gentlemen do get bored by ladies. And at last she asked herself another question,--had she any special liking for Mr. Gibson? As far as she understood such matters everything was blank there. Thinking of that other question, she went to sleep. CHAPTER XXIII. COLONEL OSBORNE AND MR. BOZZLE RETURN TO LONDON. Hugh Stanbury went down on the Saturday, by the early express to Exeter, on his road to Lessboro'. He took his ticket through to Lessboro', not purposing to stay at Exeter; but, from the exigencies of the various trains, it was necessary that he should remain for half an hour at the Exeter Station. This took place on the Saturday, and Colonel Osborne's visit to the Clock House had been made on the Friday. Colonel Osborne had returned to Lessboro', had slept again at Mrs. Clegg's house, and returned to London on the Saturday. It so happened that he also was obliged to spend half an hour at the Exeter Station, and that his half-hour, and Hugh Stanbury's half-hour, were one and the same. They met, therefore, as a matter of course, upon the platform. Stanbury was the first to see the other, and he found that he must determine on the spur of the moment what he would say, and what he would do. He had received no direct commission from Trevelyan as to his meeting with Colonel Osborne. Trevelyan had declared that, as to the matter of quarrelling, he meant to retain the privilege of doing that for himself; but Stanbury had quite understood that this was only the vague expression of an angry man. The Colonel had taken a glass of sherry, and had lighted a cigar, and was quite comfortable,--having thrown aside, for a time, that consciousness of the futility of his journey which had perplexed him,--when Stanbury accosted him. "What! Mr. Stanbury,--how do you do? Fine day, isn't it? Are you going up or down?" "I'm going to see my own people at Nuncombe Putney, a village beyond Lessboro'," said Hugh. "Ah;--indeed." Colonel Osborne of course perceived at once that as this man was going to the house at which he had just been visiting, it would be better that he should himself explain what he had done. If he were to allow this mention of Nuncombe Putney to pass without saying that he himself had been there, he would be convicted of at least some purpose of secrecy in what he had been doing. "Very strange," said he; "I was at Nuncombe Putney myself yesterday." "I know you were," said Stanbury. "And how did you know it?" There had been a tone of anger in Stanbury's voice which Colonel Osborne had at once appreciated, and which made him assume a similar tone. As they spoke there was a man standing in a corner close by the bookstall, with his eye upon them, and that man was Bozzle, the ex-policeman,--who was doing his duty with sedulous activity by seeing "the Colonel" back to London. Now Bozzle did not know Hugh Stanbury, and was angry with himself that he should be so ignorant. It is the pride of a detective ex-policeman to know everybody that comes in his way. "Well, I had been so informed. My friend Trevelyan knew that you were there,--or that you were going there." "I don't care who knew that I was going there," said the Colonel. "I won't pretend to understand how that may be, Colonel Osborne; but I think you must be aware, after what took place in Curzon Street, that it would have been better that you should not have attempted to see Mrs. Trevelyan. Whether you have seen her I do not know." "What business is it of yours, Mr. Stanbury, whether I have seen that lady or not?" "Unhappily for me, her husband has made it my business." "Very unhappily for you, I should say." "And the lady is staying at my mother's house." "I presume the lady is not a prisoner in your mother's house, and that your mother's hospitality is not so restricted but that her guest may see an old friend under her roof." This Colonel Osborne said with an assumed look of almost righteous indignation, which was not at all lost upon Bozzle. They had returned back towards the bookstall, and Bozzle, with his eyes fixed on a copy of the "D. R." which he had just bought, was straining his ears to the utmost to catch what was being said. "You best know whether you have seen her or not." "I have seen her." "Then I shall take leave to tell you, Colonel Osborne, that you have acted in a most unfriendly way, and have done that which must tend to keep an affectionate husband apart from his wife." "Sir, I don't at all understand this kind of thing addressed to me. The father of the lady you are speaking of has been my most intimate friend for thirty years." After all, the Colonel was a mean man when he could take pride in his youth, and defend himself on the score of his age, in one and the same proceeding. "I have nothing further to say," replied Stanbury. "You have said too much already, Mr. Stanbury." "I think not, Colonel Osborne. You have, I fear, done an incredible deal of mischief by going to Nuncombe Putney; and, after all that you have heard on the subject, you must have known that it would be mischievous. I cannot understand how you can | fellow | How many times the word 'fellow' appears in the text? | 0 |
very great,--so great that in its first flush she could not restrain herself from exhibiting it to Dorothy. "Well,--well,--what do you think, Dolly?" "About what, aunt? I don't know who the letter is from." "Nobody writes to me now so constant as your sister Priscilla. The letter is from Priscilla. Colonel Osborne has been at the Clock House, after all. I knew that he would be there. I knew it! I knew it!" Dorothy, when she heard this, was dumbfounded. She had rested her defence of her mother and sister on the impossibility of any such visit being admitted. According to her lights the coming of Colonel Osborne, after all that had been said, would be like the coming of Lucifer himself. The Colonel was, to her imagination, a horrible roaring lion. She had no idea that the erratic manoeuvres of such a beast might be milder and more innocent than the wooing of any turtle-dove. She would have asked whether the roaring lion had gone away again, and, if so, whether he had taken his prey with him, were it not that she was too much frightened at the moment to ask any question. That her mother and sister should have been wilfully concerned in such iniquity was quite incredible to her, but yet she did not know how to defend them. "But are you quite sure of it, Aunt Stanbury? May there not be another mistake?" "No mistake this time, I think, my dear. Any way, Priscilla says that he is there." Now in this there was a mistake. Priscilla had said nothing of the kind. "You don't mean that he is staying at the Clock House, Aunt Stanbury?" "I don't know where he is now. I'm not his keeper. And, I'm glad to say, I'm not the lady's keeper either. Ah, me! It's a bad business. You can't touch pitch and not be defiled, my dear. If your mother wanted the Clock House, I would sooner have taken it for her myself than that all this should have happened,--for the family's sake." But Miss Stanbury, when she was alone, and when she had read her niece's three letters again and again, began to understand something of Priscilla's honesty, and began also to perceive that there might have been a great difficulty respecting the Colonel, for which neither her niece nor her sister-in-law could fairly be held to be responsible. It was perhaps the plainest characteristic of all the Stanburys that they were never wilfully dishonest. Ignorant, prejudiced, and passionate they might be. In her anger Miss Stanbury, of Exeter, could be almost malicious; and her niece at Nuncombe Putney was very like her aunt. Each could say most cruel things, most unjust things, when actuated by a mistaken consciousness of perfect right on her own side. But neither of them could lie,--even by silence. Let an error be brought home to either of them,--so as to be acknowledged at home,--and the error would be assuredly confessed aloud. And, indeed, with differences in the shades, Hugh and Dorothy were of the same nature. They were possessed of sweeter tempers than their aunt and sister, but they were filled with the same eager readiness to believe themselves to be right,--and to own themselves to others to be wrong, when they had been constrained to make such confession to themselves. The chances of life, and something probably of inner nature, had made Dorothy mild and obedient; whereas, in regard to Hugh, the circumstances of his life and disposition had made him obstinate and self-reliant. But in all was to be found the same belief in self,--which amounted almost to conceit,--the same warmth of affection, and the same love of justice. When Miss Stanbury had again perused the correspondence, and had come to see, dimly, how things had gone at Nuncombe Putney,--when the conviction came upon her mind that Priscilla had entertained a horror as to the coming of this Colonel equal to that which she herself had felt,--when her imagination painted to her all that her niece had suffered, her heart was softened somewhat. She had declared to Dorothy that pitch, if touched, would certainly defile; and she had, at first, intended to send the same opinion, couched in very forcible words, to her correspondents at the Clock House. They should not continue to go astray for want of being told that they were going astray. It must be acknowledged, too, that there was a certain amount of ignoble wrath in the bosom of Miss Stanbury because her sister-in-law had taken the Clock House. She had never been told, and had not even condescended to ask Dorothy, whether the house was taken and paid for by her nephew on behalf of his mother, or whether it was paid for by Mr. Trevelyan on behalf of his wife. In the latter case, Mrs. Stanbury would, she thought, be little more than an upper servant, or keeper,--as she expressed it to herself. Such an arrangement appeared to her to be quite disgraceful in a Stanbury; but yet she believed that such must be the existing arrangement, as she could not bring herself to conceive that Hugh Stanbury could keep such an establishment over his mother's head out of money earned by writing for a penny newspaper. There would be a triumph of democracy in this which would vanquish her altogether. She had, therefore, been anxious enough to trample on Priscilla and upon all the affairs of the Clock House; but yet she had been unable to ignore the nobility of Priscilla's truth, and having acknowledged it to herself she found herself compelled to acknowledge it aloud. She sat down to think in silence, and it was not till she had fortified herself by her first draught of beer, and till she had finished her first portion of bread and cheese, that she spoke. "I have written to your sister herself, this time," she said. "I don't know that I ever wrote a line to her before in my life." "Poor Priscilla!" Dorothy did not mean to be severe on her aunt, either in regard to the letters which had not been written, or to the one letter which now had been written. But Dorothy pitied her sister, whom she felt to be in trouble. "Well; I don't know about her being so poor. Priscilla, I'll be bound, thinks as well of herself as any of us do." "She'd cut her fingers off before she'd mean to do wrong," said Dorothy. "But what does that come to? What's the good of that? It isn't meaning to do right that will save us. For aught I know, the Radicals may mean to do right. Mr. Beales means to do right--perhaps." "But, aunt,--if everybody did the best they could?" "Tush, my dear! you are getting beyond your depth. There are such things still, thank God! as spiritual pastors and masters. Entrust yourself to them. Do what they think right." Now if aught were known in Exeter of Miss Stanbury, this was known,--that if any clergyman volunteered to give to her, unasked and uninvited, counsel, either ghostly or bodily, that clergyman would be sent from her presence with a wigging which he would not soon forget. The thing had been tried more than once, and the wigging had been complete. There was no more attentive listener in church than Miss Stanbury; and she would, now and again, appeal to a clergyman on some knotty point. But for the ordinary authority of spiritual pastors and masters she shewed more of abstract reverence than of practical obedience. "I'm sure Priscilla does the best she can," said Dorothy, going back to the old subject. "Ah,--well,--yes. What I want to say about Priscilla is this. It is a thousand pities she is so obstinate, so pig-headed, so certain that she can manage everything for herself better than anybody else can for her." Miss Stanbury was striving to say something good of her niece, but found the task to be difficult and distasteful to her. "She has managed for mamma ever so many years; and since she took it we have hardly ever been in debt," said Dorothy. "She'll do all that, I don't doubt. I don't suppose she cares much for ribbons and false hair for herself." "Who? Priscilla! The idea of Priscilla with false hair!" "I dare say not;--I dare say not. I do not think she'd spend her mother's money on things of that kind." "Aunt Stanbury, you don't know her." "Ah; very well. Perhaps I don't. But, come, my dear, you are very hard upon me, and very anxious to take your sister's part. And what is it all about? I've just written to her as civil a letter as one woman ever wrote to another. And if I had chosen, I could have,--could have,--h--m--m." Miss Stanbury, as she hesitated for words in which to complete her sentence, revelled in the strength of the vituperation which she could have poured upon her niece's head, had she chosen to write her last letter about Colonel Osborne in her severe strain. "If you have written kindly to her, I am so much obliged to you," said Dorothy. "The truth is, Priscilla has meant to be right. Meaning won't go for much when the account is taken, unless the meaning comes from a proper source. But the poor girl has done as well as she has known how. I believe it is Hugh's fault more than anybody else's." This accusation was not pleasant to Dorothy, but she was too intent just now on Priscilla's case to defend her brother. "That man never ought to have been there; and that woman never ought to have been there. There cannot be a doubt about that. If Priscilla were sitting there opposite to me, she would own as much. I am sure she would." Miss Stanbury was quite right if she meant to assert that Priscilla had owned as much to herself. "And because I think so, I am willing to forgive her part in the matter. To me, personally, she has always been rude,--most uncourteous,--and,--and,--and unlike a younger woman to an older one, and an aunt, and all that. I suppose it is because she hates me." "Oh, no, Aunt Stanbury!" "My dear, I suppose it is. Why else should she treat me in such a way? But I do believe of her that she would rather eat an honest, dry crust, than dishonest cake and ale." "She would rather starve than pick up a crumb that was dishonest," said Dorothy, fairly bursting out into tears. "I believe it. I do believe it. There; what more can I say? Clock House, indeed! What matter what house you live in, so that you can pay the rent of it honestly?" "But the rent is paid--honestly," said Dorothy, amidst her sobs. "It's paid, I don't doubt. I dare say the woman's husband and your brother see to that among them. Oh, that my boy, Hugh, as he used to be, should have brought us all to this! But there's no knowing what they won't do among them. Reform, indeed! Murder, sacrilege, adultery, treason, atheism;--that's what Reform means; besides every kind of nastiness under the sun." In which latter category Miss Stanbury intended especially to include bad printer's ink, and paper made of straw. The reader may as well see the letter which was as civil a letter as ever one woman wrote to another, so that the collection of the Stanbury correspondence may be made perfect. The Close, August 6, 186--. MY DEAR NIECE, Your letter has not astonished me nearly as much as you expected it would. I am an older woman than you, and, though you will not believe it, I have seen more of the world. I knew that the gentleman would come after the lady. Such gentlemen always do go after their ladies. As for yourself, I can see all that you have done, and pretty nearly hear all that you have said, as plain as a pike-staff. I do you the credit of believing that the plan is none of your making. I know who made the plan, and a very bad plan it is. As to my former letters and the other man, I understand all about it. You were very angry that I should accuse you of having this man at the house; and you were right to be angry. I respect you for having been angry. But what does all that say as to his coming,--now that he has come? If you will consent to take an old woman's advice, get rid of the whole boiling of them. I say it in firm love and friendship, for I am,-- Your affectionate aunt, JEMIMA STANBURY. The special vaunted courtesy of this letter consisted, no doubt, in the expression of respect which it contained, and in that declaration of affection with which it terminated. The epithet was one which Miss Stanbury would by no means use promiscuously in writing to her nearest relatives. She had not intended to use it when she commenced her letter to Priscilla. But the respect of which she had spoken had glowed, and had warmed itself into something of temporary love; and feeling at the moment that she was an affectionate aunt, Miss Stanbury had so put herself down in her letter. Having done such a deed she felt that Dorothy, though Dorothy knew nothing about it, ought in her gratitude to listen patiently to anything that she might now choose to say against Priscilla. But Dorothy was in truth very miserable, and in her misery wrote a long letter that afternoon to her mother,--which, however, it will not be necessary to place entire among the Stanbury records,--begging that she might be informed as to the true circumstances of the case. She did not say a word of censure in regard either to her mother or sister; but she expressed an opinion in the mildest words which she could use, that if anything had happened which had compromised their names since their residence at the Clock House, she, Dorothy, had better go home and join them. The meaning of which was that it would not become her to remain in the house in the Close, if the house in the Close would be disgraced by her presence. Poor Dorothy had taught herself to think that the iniquity of roaring lions spread itself very widely. In the afternoon she made some such proposition to her aunt in ambiguous terms. "Go home!" said Miss Stanbury. "Now?" "If you think it best, Aunt Stanbury." "And put yourself in the middle of all this iniquity and abomination! I don't suppose you want to know the woman?" "No, indeed!" "Or the man?" "Oh, Aunt Stanbury!" "It's my belief that no decent gentleman in Exeter would look at you again if you were to go and live among them at Nuncombe Putney while all this is going on. No, no. Let one of you be saved out of it, at least." Aunt Stanbury had more than once made use of expressions which brought the faintest touch of gentle pink up to her niece's cheeks. We must do Dorothy the justice of saying that she had never dreamed of being looked at by any gentleman, whether decent or indecent. Her life at Nuncombe Putney had been of such a nature, that though she knew that other girls were looked at, and even made love to, and that they got married and had children, no dim vision of such a career for herself had ever presented itself to her eyes. She had known very well that her mother and sister and herself were people apart,--ladies, and yet so extremely poor, that they could only maintain their rank by the most rigid seclusion. To live, and work unseen, was what the world had ordained for her. Then her call to Exeter had come upon her, and she had conceived that she was henceforth to be the humble companion of a very imperious old aunt. Her aunt, indeed, was imperious, but did not seem to require humility in her companion. All the good things that were eaten and drunk were divided between them with the strictest impartiality. Dorothy's cushion and hassock in the church and in the cathedral were the same as her aunt's. Her bed-room was made very comfortable for her. Her aunt never gave her any orders before company, and always spoke of her before the servants as one whom they were to obey and respect. Gradually Dorothy came to understand the meaning of this;--but her aunt would sometimes say things about young men which she did not quite understand. Could it be that her aunt supposed that any young man would come and wish to marry her,--her, Dorothy Stanbury? She herself had not quite so strong an aversion to men in general as that which Priscilla felt, but she had not as yet found that any of those whom she had seen at Exeter were peculiarly agreeable to her. Before she went to bed that night her aunt said a word to her which startled her more than she had ever been startled before. On that evening Miss Stanbury had a few friends to drink tea with her. There were Mr. and Mrs. Crumbie, and Mrs. MacHugh of course, and the Cheritons from Alphington, and the Miss Apjohns from Helion Villa, and old Mr. Powel all the way from Haldon, and two of the Wrights from their house in the Northernhay, and Mr. Gibson;--but the Miss Frenches from Heavitree were not there. "Why don't you have the Miss Frenches, aunt?" Dorothy had asked. "Bother the Miss Frenches! I'm not bound to have them every time. There's Camilla has been and got herself a band-box on the back of her head a great deal bigger than the place inside where her brains ought to be." But the band-box at the back of Camilla French's head was not the sole cause of the omission of the two sisters from the list of Miss Stanbury's visitors on this occasion. The party went off very much as usual. There were two whist tables, for Miss Stanbury could not bear to cut out. At other houses than her own, when there was cutting out, it was quite understood that Miss Stanbury was to be allowed to keep her place. "I'll go away, and sit out there by myself, if you like," she would say. But she was never thus banished; and at her own house she usually contrived that there should be no system of banishment. She would play dummy whist, preferring it to the four-handed game; and, when hard driven, and with a meet opponent, would not even despise double-dummy. It was told of her and of Mrs. MacHugh that they had played double-dummy for a whole evening together; and they who were given to calumny had declared that the candles on that evening had been lighted very early. On the present occasion a great many sixpenny points were scored, and much tea and cake were consumed. Mr. Gibson never played whist,--nor did Dorothy. That young John Wright and Mary Cheriton should do nothing but talk to each other was a thing of course, as they were to be married in a month or two. Then there was Ida Cheriton, who could not very well be left at home; and Mr. Gibson made himself pleasant to Dorothy and Ida Cheriton, instead of making himself pleasant to the two Miss Frenches. Gentlemen in provincial towns quite understand that, from the nature of social circumstances in the provinces, they should always be ready to be pleasant at least to a pair at a time. At a few minutes before twelve they were all gone, and then came the shock. "Dolly, my dear, what do you think of Mr. Gibson?" "Think of him, Aunt Stanbury?" "Yes; think of him;--think of him. I suppose you know how to think?" "He seems to me always to preach very drawling sermons." "Oh, bother his sermons! I don't care anything about his sermons now. He is a very good clergyman, and the Dean thinks very much about him." "I am glad of that, Aunt Stanbury." Then came the shock. "Don't you think it would be a very good thing if you were to become Mrs. Gibson?" It may be presumed that Miss Stanbury had assured herself that she could not make progress with Dorothy by "beating about the bush." There was an inaptitude in her niece to comprehend the advantages of the situations, which made some direct explanation absolutely necessary. Dorothy stood half-smiling, half-crying, when she heard the proposition, her cheeks suffused with that pink colour, and with both her hands extended with surprise. "I've been thinking about it ever since you've been here," said Miss Stanbury. "I think he likes Miss French," said Dorothy, in a whisper. "Which of them? I don't believe he likes them at all. Maybe, if they go on long enough, they may be able to toss up for him. But I don't think it of him. Of course they're after him, but he'll be too wise for them. And he's more of a fool than I take him to be if he don't prefer you to them." Dorothy remained quite silent. To such an address as this it was impossible that she should reply a word. It was incredible to her that any man should prefer herself to either of the young women in question; but she was too much confounded for the expression even of her humility. "At any rate you're wholesome, and pleasant and modest," said Miss Stanbury. Dorothy did not quite like being told that she was wholesome; but, nevertheless, she was thankful to her aunt. "I'll tell you what it is," continued Miss Stanbury; "I hate all mysteries, especially with those I love. I've saved two thousand pounds, which I've put you down for in my will. Now, if you and he can make it up together, I'll give you the money at once. There's no knowing how often an old woman may alter her will; but when you've got a thing, you've got it. Mr. Gibson would know the meaning of a bird in the hand as well as anybody. Now those girls at Heavitree will never have above a few hundreds each, and not that while their mother lives." Dorothy made one little attempt at squeezing her aunt's hand, wishing to thank her aunt for this affectionate generosity; but she had hardly accomplished the squeeze, when she desisted, feeling strangely averse to any acknowledgment of such a boon as that which had been offered to her. "And now, good night, my dear. If I did not think you a very sensible young woman, I should not trust you by saying all this." Then they parted, and Dorothy soon found herself alone in her bedroom. To have a husband of her own, a perfect gentleman too, and a clergyman;--and to go to him with a fortune! She believed that two thousand pounds represented nearly a hundred a year. It was a large fortune in those parts,--according to her understanding of ladies' fortunes. And that she, the humblest of the humble, should be selected for so honourable a position! She had never quite known, quite understood as yet, whether she had made good her footing in her aunt's house in a manner pleasant to her aunt. More than once or twice she had spoken even of going back to her mother, and things had been said which had almost made her think that her aunt had been angry with her. But now, after a month or two of joint residence, her aunt was offering to her--two thousand pounds and a husband! But was it within her aunt's power to offer to her the husband? Mr. Gibson had always been very civil to her. She had spoken more to Mr. Gibson than to any other man in Exeter. But it had never occurred to her for a moment that Mr. Gibson had any special liking for her. Was it probable that he would ever entertain any feeling of that kind for her? It certainly had occurred to her before now that Mr. Gibson was sometimes bored by the Miss Frenches;--but then gentlemen do get bored by ladies. And at last she asked herself another question,--had she any special liking for Mr. Gibson? As far as she understood such matters everything was blank there. Thinking of that other question, she went to sleep. CHAPTER XXIII. COLONEL OSBORNE AND MR. BOZZLE RETURN TO LONDON. Hugh Stanbury went down on the Saturday, by the early express to Exeter, on his road to Lessboro'. He took his ticket through to Lessboro', not purposing to stay at Exeter; but, from the exigencies of the various trains, it was necessary that he should remain for half an hour at the Exeter Station. This took place on the Saturday, and Colonel Osborne's visit to the Clock House had been made on the Friday. Colonel Osborne had returned to Lessboro', had slept again at Mrs. Clegg's house, and returned to London on the Saturday. It so happened that he also was obliged to spend half an hour at the Exeter Station, and that his half-hour, and Hugh Stanbury's half-hour, were one and the same. They met, therefore, as a matter of course, upon the platform. Stanbury was the first to see the other, and he found that he must determine on the spur of the moment what he would say, and what he would do. He had received no direct commission from Trevelyan as to his meeting with Colonel Osborne. Trevelyan had declared that, as to the matter of quarrelling, he meant to retain the privilege of doing that for himself; but Stanbury had quite understood that this was only the vague expression of an angry man. The Colonel had taken a glass of sherry, and had lighted a cigar, and was quite comfortable,--having thrown aside, for a time, that consciousness of the futility of his journey which had perplexed him,--when Stanbury accosted him. "What! Mr. Stanbury,--how do you do? Fine day, isn't it? Are you going up or down?" "I'm going to see my own people at Nuncombe Putney, a village beyond Lessboro'," said Hugh. "Ah;--indeed." Colonel Osborne of course perceived at once that as this man was going to the house at which he had just been visiting, it would be better that he should himself explain what he had done. If he were to allow this mention of Nuncombe Putney to pass without saying that he himself had been there, he would be convicted of at least some purpose of secrecy in what he had been doing. "Very strange," said he; "I was at Nuncombe Putney myself yesterday." "I know you were," said Stanbury. "And how did you know it?" There had been a tone of anger in Stanbury's voice which Colonel Osborne had at once appreciated, and which made him assume a similar tone. As they spoke there was a man standing in a corner close by the bookstall, with his eye upon them, and that man was Bozzle, the ex-policeman,--who was doing his duty with sedulous activity by seeing "the Colonel" back to London. Now Bozzle did not know Hugh Stanbury, and was angry with himself that he should be so ignorant. It is the pride of a detective ex-policeman to know everybody that comes in his way. "Well, I had been so informed. My friend Trevelyan knew that you were there,--or that you were going there." "I don't care who knew that I was going there," said the Colonel. "I won't pretend to understand how that may be, Colonel Osborne; but I think you must be aware, after what took place in Curzon Street, that it would have been better that you should not have attempted to see Mrs. Trevelyan. Whether you have seen her I do not know." "What business is it of yours, Mr. Stanbury, whether I have seen that lady or not?" "Unhappily for me, her husband has made it my business." "Very unhappily for you, I should say." "And the lady is staying at my mother's house." "I presume the lady is not a prisoner in your mother's house, and that your mother's hospitality is not so restricted but that her guest may see an old friend under her roof." This Colonel Osborne said with an assumed look of almost righteous indignation, which was not at all lost upon Bozzle. They had returned back towards the bookstall, and Bozzle, with his eyes fixed on a copy of the "D. R." which he had just bought, was straining his ears to the utmost to catch what was being said. "You best know whether you have seen her or not." "I have seen her." "Then I shall take leave to tell you, Colonel Osborne, that you have acted in a most unfriendly way, and have done that which must tend to keep an affectionate husband apart from his wife." "Sir, I don't at all understand this kind of thing addressed to me. The father of the lady you are speaking of has been my most intimate friend for thirty years." After all, the Colonel was a mean man when he could take pride in his youth, and defend himself on the score of his age, in one and the same proceeding. "I have nothing further to say," replied Stanbury. "You have said too much already, Mr. Stanbury." "I think not, Colonel Osborne. You have, I fear, done an incredible deal of mischief by going to Nuncombe Putney; and, after all that you have heard on the subject, you must have known that it would be mischievous. I cannot understand how you can | diable | How many times the word 'diable' appears in the text? | 0 |
very great,--so great that in its first flush she could not restrain herself from exhibiting it to Dorothy. "Well,--well,--what do you think, Dolly?" "About what, aunt? I don't know who the letter is from." "Nobody writes to me now so constant as your sister Priscilla. The letter is from Priscilla. Colonel Osborne has been at the Clock House, after all. I knew that he would be there. I knew it! I knew it!" Dorothy, when she heard this, was dumbfounded. She had rested her defence of her mother and sister on the impossibility of any such visit being admitted. According to her lights the coming of Colonel Osborne, after all that had been said, would be like the coming of Lucifer himself. The Colonel was, to her imagination, a horrible roaring lion. She had no idea that the erratic manoeuvres of such a beast might be milder and more innocent than the wooing of any turtle-dove. She would have asked whether the roaring lion had gone away again, and, if so, whether he had taken his prey with him, were it not that she was too much frightened at the moment to ask any question. That her mother and sister should have been wilfully concerned in such iniquity was quite incredible to her, but yet she did not know how to defend them. "But are you quite sure of it, Aunt Stanbury? May there not be another mistake?" "No mistake this time, I think, my dear. Any way, Priscilla says that he is there." Now in this there was a mistake. Priscilla had said nothing of the kind. "You don't mean that he is staying at the Clock House, Aunt Stanbury?" "I don't know where he is now. I'm not his keeper. And, I'm glad to say, I'm not the lady's keeper either. Ah, me! It's a bad business. You can't touch pitch and not be defiled, my dear. If your mother wanted the Clock House, I would sooner have taken it for her myself than that all this should have happened,--for the family's sake." But Miss Stanbury, when she was alone, and when she had read her niece's three letters again and again, began to understand something of Priscilla's honesty, and began also to perceive that there might have been a great difficulty respecting the Colonel, for which neither her niece nor her sister-in-law could fairly be held to be responsible. It was perhaps the plainest characteristic of all the Stanburys that they were never wilfully dishonest. Ignorant, prejudiced, and passionate they might be. In her anger Miss Stanbury, of Exeter, could be almost malicious; and her niece at Nuncombe Putney was very like her aunt. Each could say most cruel things, most unjust things, when actuated by a mistaken consciousness of perfect right on her own side. But neither of them could lie,--even by silence. Let an error be brought home to either of them,--so as to be acknowledged at home,--and the error would be assuredly confessed aloud. And, indeed, with differences in the shades, Hugh and Dorothy were of the same nature. They were possessed of sweeter tempers than their aunt and sister, but they were filled with the same eager readiness to believe themselves to be right,--and to own themselves to others to be wrong, when they had been constrained to make such confession to themselves. The chances of life, and something probably of inner nature, had made Dorothy mild and obedient; whereas, in regard to Hugh, the circumstances of his life and disposition had made him obstinate and self-reliant. But in all was to be found the same belief in self,--which amounted almost to conceit,--the same warmth of affection, and the same love of justice. When Miss Stanbury had again perused the correspondence, and had come to see, dimly, how things had gone at Nuncombe Putney,--when the conviction came upon her mind that Priscilla had entertained a horror as to the coming of this Colonel equal to that which she herself had felt,--when her imagination painted to her all that her niece had suffered, her heart was softened somewhat. She had declared to Dorothy that pitch, if touched, would certainly defile; and she had, at first, intended to send the same opinion, couched in very forcible words, to her correspondents at the Clock House. They should not continue to go astray for want of being told that they were going astray. It must be acknowledged, too, that there was a certain amount of ignoble wrath in the bosom of Miss Stanbury because her sister-in-law had taken the Clock House. She had never been told, and had not even condescended to ask Dorothy, whether the house was taken and paid for by her nephew on behalf of his mother, or whether it was paid for by Mr. Trevelyan on behalf of his wife. In the latter case, Mrs. Stanbury would, she thought, be little more than an upper servant, or keeper,--as she expressed it to herself. Such an arrangement appeared to her to be quite disgraceful in a Stanbury; but yet she believed that such must be the existing arrangement, as she could not bring herself to conceive that Hugh Stanbury could keep such an establishment over his mother's head out of money earned by writing for a penny newspaper. There would be a triumph of democracy in this which would vanquish her altogether. She had, therefore, been anxious enough to trample on Priscilla and upon all the affairs of the Clock House; but yet she had been unable to ignore the nobility of Priscilla's truth, and having acknowledged it to herself she found herself compelled to acknowledge it aloud. She sat down to think in silence, and it was not till she had fortified herself by her first draught of beer, and till she had finished her first portion of bread and cheese, that she spoke. "I have written to your sister herself, this time," she said. "I don't know that I ever wrote a line to her before in my life." "Poor Priscilla!" Dorothy did not mean to be severe on her aunt, either in regard to the letters which had not been written, or to the one letter which now had been written. But Dorothy pitied her sister, whom she felt to be in trouble. "Well; I don't know about her being so poor. Priscilla, I'll be bound, thinks as well of herself as any of us do." "She'd cut her fingers off before she'd mean to do wrong," said Dorothy. "But what does that come to? What's the good of that? It isn't meaning to do right that will save us. For aught I know, the Radicals may mean to do right. Mr. Beales means to do right--perhaps." "But, aunt,--if everybody did the best they could?" "Tush, my dear! you are getting beyond your depth. There are such things still, thank God! as spiritual pastors and masters. Entrust yourself to them. Do what they think right." Now if aught were known in Exeter of Miss Stanbury, this was known,--that if any clergyman volunteered to give to her, unasked and uninvited, counsel, either ghostly or bodily, that clergyman would be sent from her presence with a wigging which he would not soon forget. The thing had been tried more than once, and the wigging had been complete. There was no more attentive listener in church than Miss Stanbury; and she would, now and again, appeal to a clergyman on some knotty point. But for the ordinary authority of spiritual pastors and masters she shewed more of abstract reverence than of practical obedience. "I'm sure Priscilla does the best she can," said Dorothy, going back to the old subject. "Ah,--well,--yes. What I want to say about Priscilla is this. It is a thousand pities she is so obstinate, so pig-headed, so certain that she can manage everything for herself better than anybody else can for her." Miss Stanbury was striving to say something good of her niece, but found the task to be difficult and distasteful to her. "She has managed for mamma ever so many years; and since she took it we have hardly ever been in debt," said Dorothy. "She'll do all that, I don't doubt. I don't suppose she cares much for ribbons and false hair for herself." "Who? Priscilla! The idea of Priscilla with false hair!" "I dare say not;--I dare say not. I do not think she'd spend her mother's money on things of that kind." "Aunt Stanbury, you don't know her." "Ah; very well. Perhaps I don't. But, come, my dear, you are very hard upon me, and very anxious to take your sister's part. And what is it all about? I've just written to her as civil a letter as one woman ever wrote to another. And if I had chosen, I could have,--could have,--h--m--m." Miss Stanbury, as she hesitated for words in which to complete her sentence, revelled in the strength of the vituperation which she could have poured upon her niece's head, had she chosen to write her last letter about Colonel Osborne in her severe strain. "If you have written kindly to her, I am so much obliged to you," said Dorothy. "The truth is, Priscilla has meant to be right. Meaning won't go for much when the account is taken, unless the meaning comes from a proper source. But the poor girl has done as well as she has known how. I believe it is Hugh's fault more than anybody else's." This accusation was not pleasant to Dorothy, but she was too intent just now on Priscilla's case to defend her brother. "That man never ought to have been there; and that woman never ought to have been there. There cannot be a doubt about that. If Priscilla were sitting there opposite to me, she would own as much. I am sure she would." Miss Stanbury was quite right if she meant to assert that Priscilla had owned as much to herself. "And because I think so, I am willing to forgive her part in the matter. To me, personally, she has always been rude,--most uncourteous,--and,--and,--and unlike a younger woman to an older one, and an aunt, and all that. I suppose it is because she hates me." "Oh, no, Aunt Stanbury!" "My dear, I suppose it is. Why else should she treat me in such a way? But I do believe of her that she would rather eat an honest, dry crust, than dishonest cake and ale." "She would rather starve than pick up a crumb that was dishonest," said Dorothy, fairly bursting out into tears. "I believe it. I do believe it. There; what more can I say? Clock House, indeed! What matter what house you live in, so that you can pay the rent of it honestly?" "But the rent is paid--honestly," said Dorothy, amidst her sobs. "It's paid, I don't doubt. I dare say the woman's husband and your brother see to that among them. Oh, that my boy, Hugh, as he used to be, should have brought us all to this! But there's no knowing what they won't do among them. Reform, indeed! Murder, sacrilege, adultery, treason, atheism;--that's what Reform means; besides every kind of nastiness under the sun." In which latter category Miss Stanbury intended especially to include bad printer's ink, and paper made of straw. The reader may as well see the letter which was as civil a letter as ever one woman wrote to another, so that the collection of the Stanbury correspondence may be made perfect. The Close, August 6, 186--. MY DEAR NIECE, Your letter has not astonished me nearly as much as you expected it would. I am an older woman than you, and, though you will not believe it, I have seen more of the world. I knew that the gentleman would come after the lady. Such gentlemen always do go after their ladies. As for yourself, I can see all that you have done, and pretty nearly hear all that you have said, as plain as a pike-staff. I do you the credit of believing that the plan is none of your making. I know who made the plan, and a very bad plan it is. As to my former letters and the other man, I understand all about it. You were very angry that I should accuse you of having this man at the house; and you were right to be angry. I respect you for having been angry. But what does all that say as to his coming,--now that he has come? If you will consent to take an old woman's advice, get rid of the whole boiling of them. I say it in firm love and friendship, for I am,-- Your affectionate aunt, JEMIMA STANBURY. The special vaunted courtesy of this letter consisted, no doubt, in the expression of respect which it contained, and in that declaration of affection with which it terminated. The epithet was one which Miss Stanbury would by no means use promiscuously in writing to her nearest relatives. She had not intended to use it when she commenced her letter to Priscilla. But the respect of which she had spoken had glowed, and had warmed itself into something of temporary love; and feeling at the moment that she was an affectionate aunt, Miss Stanbury had so put herself down in her letter. Having done such a deed she felt that Dorothy, though Dorothy knew nothing about it, ought in her gratitude to listen patiently to anything that she might now choose to say against Priscilla. But Dorothy was in truth very miserable, and in her misery wrote a long letter that afternoon to her mother,--which, however, it will not be necessary to place entire among the Stanbury records,--begging that she might be informed as to the true circumstances of the case. She did not say a word of censure in regard either to her mother or sister; but she expressed an opinion in the mildest words which she could use, that if anything had happened which had compromised their names since their residence at the Clock House, she, Dorothy, had better go home and join them. The meaning of which was that it would not become her to remain in the house in the Close, if the house in the Close would be disgraced by her presence. Poor Dorothy had taught herself to think that the iniquity of roaring lions spread itself very widely. In the afternoon she made some such proposition to her aunt in ambiguous terms. "Go home!" said Miss Stanbury. "Now?" "If you think it best, Aunt Stanbury." "And put yourself in the middle of all this iniquity and abomination! I don't suppose you want to know the woman?" "No, indeed!" "Or the man?" "Oh, Aunt Stanbury!" "It's my belief that no decent gentleman in Exeter would look at you again if you were to go and live among them at Nuncombe Putney while all this is going on. No, no. Let one of you be saved out of it, at least." Aunt Stanbury had more than once made use of expressions which brought the faintest touch of gentle pink up to her niece's cheeks. We must do Dorothy the justice of saying that she had never dreamed of being looked at by any gentleman, whether decent or indecent. Her life at Nuncombe Putney had been of such a nature, that though she knew that other girls were looked at, and even made love to, and that they got married and had children, no dim vision of such a career for herself had ever presented itself to her eyes. She had known very well that her mother and sister and herself were people apart,--ladies, and yet so extremely poor, that they could only maintain their rank by the most rigid seclusion. To live, and work unseen, was what the world had ordained for her. Then her call to Exeter had come upon her, and she had conceived that she was henceforth to be the humble companion of a very imperious old aunt. Her aunt, indeed, was imperious, but did not seem to require humility in her companion. All the good things that were eaten and drunk were divided between them with the strictest impartiality. Dorothy's cushion and hassock in the church and in the cathedral were the same as her aunt's. Her bed-room was made very comfortable for her. Her aunt never gave her any orders before company, and always spoke of her before the servants as one whom they were to obey and respect. Gradually Dorothy came to understand the meaning of this;--but her aunt would sometimes say things about young men which she did not quite understand. Could it be that her aunt supposed that any young man would come and wish to marry her,--her, Dorothy Stanbury? She herself had not quite so strong an aversion to men in general as that which Priscilla felt, but she had not as yet found that any of those whom she had seen at Exeter were peculiarly agreeable to her. Before she went to bed that night her aunt said a word to her which startled her more than she had ever been startled before. On that evening Miss Stanbury had a few friends to drink tea with her. There were Mr. and Mrs. Crumbie, and Mrs. MacHugh of course, and the Cheritons from Alphington, and the Miss Apjohns from Helion Villa, and old Mr. Powel all the way from Haldon, and two of the Wrights from their house in the Northernhay, and Mr. Gibson;--but the Miss Frenches from Heavitree were not there. "Why don't you have the Miss Frenches, aunt?" Dorothy had asked. "Bother the Miss Frenches! I'm not bound to have them every time. There's Camilla has been and got herself a band-box on the back of her head a great deal bigger than the place inside where her brains ought to be." But the band-box at the back of Camilla French's head was not the sole cause of the omission of the two sisters from the list of Miss Stanbury's visitors on this occasion. The party went off very much as usual. There were two whist tables, for Miss Stanbury could not bear to cut out. At other houses than her own, when there was cutting out, it was quite understood that Miss Stanbury was to be allowed to keep her place. "I'll go away, and sit out there by myself, if you like," she would say. But she was never thus banished; and at her own house she usually contrived that there should be no system of banishment. She would play dummy whist, preferring it to the four-handed game; and, when hard driven, and with a meet opponent, would not even despise double-dummy. It was told of her and of Mrs. MacHugh that they had played double-dummy for a whole evening together; and they who were given to calumny had declared that the candles on that evening had been lighted very early. On the present occasion a great many sixpenny points were scored, and much tea and cake were consumed. Mr. Gibson never played whist,--nor did Dorothy. That young John Wright and Mary Cheriton should do nothing but talk to each other was a thing of course, as they were to be married in a month or two. Then there was Ida Cheriton, who could not very well be left at home; and Mr. Gibson made himself pleasant to Dorothy and Ida Cheriton, instead of making himself pleasant to the two Miss Frenches. Gentlemen in provincial towns quite understand that, from the nature of social circumstances in the provinces, they should always be ready to be pleasant at least to a pair at a time. At a few minutes before twelve they were all gone, and then came the shock. "Dolly, my dear, what do you think of Mr. Gibson?" "Think of him, Aunt Stanbury?" "Yes; think of him;--think of him. I suppose you know how to think?" "He seems to me always to preach very drawling sermons." "Oh, bother his sermons! I don't care anything about his sermons now. He is a very good clergyman, and the Dean thinks very much about him." "I am glad of that, Aunt Stanbury." Then came the shock. "Don't you think it would be a very good thing if you were to become Mrs. Gibson?" It may be presumed that Miss Stanbury had assured herself that she could not make progress with Dorothy by "beating about the bush." There was an inaptitude in her niece to comprehend the advantages of the situations, which made some direct explanation absolutely necessary. Dorothy stood half-smiling, half-crying, when she heard the proposition, her cheeks suffused with that pink colour, and with both her hands extended with surprise. "I've been thinking about it ever since you've been here," said Miss Stanbury. "I think he likes Miss French," said Dorothy, in a whisper. "Which of them? I don't believe he likes them at all. Maybe, if they go on long enough, they may be able to toss up for him. But I don't think it of him. Of course they're after him, but he'll be too wise for them. And he's more of a fool than I take him to be if he don't prefer you to them." Dorothy remained quite silent. To such an address as this it was impossible that she should reply a word. It was incredible to her that any man should prefer herself to either of the young women in question; but she was too much confounded for the expression even of her humility. "At any rate you're wholesome, and pleasant and modest," said Miss Stanbury. Dorothy did not quite like being told that she was wholesome; but, nevertheless, she was thankful to her aunt. "I'll tell you what it is," continued Miss Stanbury; "I hate all mysteries, especially with those I love. I've saved two thousand pounds, which I've put you down for in my will. Now, if you and he can make it up together, I'll give you the money at once. There's no knowing how often an old woman may alter her will; but when you've got a thing, you've got it. Mr. Gibson would know the meaning of a bird in the hand as well as anybody. Now those girls at Heavitree will never have above a few hundreds each, and not that while their mother lives." Dorothy made one little attempt at squeezing her aunt's hand, wishing to thank her aunt for this affectionate generosity; but she had hardly accomplished the squeeze, when she desisted, feeling strangely averse to any acknowledgment of such a boon as that which had been offered to her. "And now, good night, my dear. If I did not think you a very sensible young woman, I should not trust you by saying all this." Then they parted, and Dorothy soon found herself alone in her bedroom. To have a husband of her own, a perfect gentleman too, and a clergyman;--and to go to him with a fortune! She believed that two thousand pounds represented nearly a hundred a year. It was a large fortune in those parts,--according to her understanding of ladies' fortunes. And that she, the humblest of the humble, should be selected for so honourable a position! She had never quite known, quite understood as yet, whether she had made good her footing in her aunt's house in a manner pleasant to her aunt. More than once or twice she had spoken even of going back to her mother, and things had been said which had almost made her think that her aunt had been angry with her. But now, after a month or two of joint residence, her aunt was offering to her--two thousand pounds and a husband! But was it within her aunt's power to offer to her the husband? Mr. Gibson had always been very civil to her. She had spoken more to Mr. Gibson than to any other man in Exeter. But it had never occurred to her for a moment that Mr. Gibson had any special liking for her. Was it probable that he would ever entertain any feeling of that kind for her? It certainly had occurred to her before now that Mr. Gibson was sometimes bored by the Miss Frenches;--but then gentlemen do get bored by ladies. And at last she asked herself another question,--had she any special liking for Mr. Gibson? As far as she understood such matters everything was blank there. Thinking of that other question, she went to sleep. CHAPTER XXIII. COLONEL OSBORNE AND MR. BOZZLE RETURN TO LONDON. Hugh Stanbury went down on the Saturday, by the early express to Exeter, on his road to Lessboro'. He took his ticket through to Lessboro', not purposing to stay at Exeter; but, from the exigencies of the various trains, it was necessary that he should remain for half an hour at the Exeter Station. This took place on the Saturday, and Colonel Osborne's visit to the Clock House had been made on the Friday. Colonel Osborne had returned to Lessboro', had slept again at Mrs. Clegg's house, and returned to London on the Saturday. It so happened that he also was obliged to spend half an hour at the Exeter Station, and that his half-hour, and Hugh Stanbury's half-hour, were one and the same. They met, therefore, as a matter of course, upon the platform. Stanbury was the first to see the other, and he found that he must determine on the spur of the moment what he would say, and what he would do. He had received no direct commission from Trevelyan as to his meeting with Colonel Osborne. Trevelyan had declared that, as to the matter of quarrelling, he meant to retain the privilege of doing that for himself; but Stanbury had quite understood that this was only the vague expression of an angry man. The Colonel had taken a glass of sherry, and had lighted a cigar, and was quite comfortable,--having thrown aside, for a time, that consciousness of the futility of his journey which had perplexed him,--when Stanbury accosted him. "What! Mr. Stanbury,--how do you do? Fine day, isn't it? Are you going up or down?" "I'm going to see my own people at Nuncombe Putney, a village beyond Lessboro'," said Hugh. "Ah;--indeed." Colonel Osborne of course perceived at once that as this man was going to the house at which he had just been visiting, it would be better that he should himself explain what he had done. If he were to allow this mention of Nuncombe Putney to pass without saying that he himself had been there, he would be convicted of at least some purpose of secrecy in what he had been doing. "Very strange," said he; "I was at Nuncombe Putney myself yesterday." "I know you were," said Stanbury. "And how did you know it?" There had been a tone of anger in Stanbury's voice which Colonel Osborne had at once appreciated, and which made him assume a similar tone. As they spoke there was a man standing in a corner close by the bookstall, with his eye upon them, and that man was Bozzle, the ex-policeman,--who was doing his duty with sedulous activity by seeing "the Colonel" back to London. Now Bozzle did not know Hugh Stanbury, and was angry with himself that he should be so ignorant. It is the pride of a detective ex-policeman to know everybody that comes in his way. "Well, I had been so informed. My friend Trevelyan knew that you were there,--or that you were going there." "I don't care who knew that I was going there," said the Colonel. "I won't pretend to understand how that may be, Colonel Osborne; but I think you must be aware, after what took place in Curzon Street, that it would have been better that you should not have attempted to see Mrs. Trevelyan. Whether you have seen her I do not know." "What business is it of yours, Mr. Stanbury, whether I have seen that lady or not?" "Unhappily for me, her husband has made it my business." "Very unhappily for you, I should say." "And the lady is staying at my mother's house." "I presume the lady is not a prisoner in your mother's house, and that your mother's hospitality is not so restricted but that her guest may see an old friend under her roof." This Colonel Osborne said with an assumed look of almost righteous indignation, which was not at all lost upon Bozzle. They had returned back towards the bookstall, and Bozzle, with his eyes fixed on a copy of the "D. R." which he had just bought, was straining his ears to the utmost to catch what was being said. "You best know whether you have seen her or not." "I have seen her." "Then I shall take leave to tell you, Colonel Osborne, that you have acted in a most unfriendly way, and have done that which must tend to keep an affectionate husband apart from his wife." "Sir, I don't at all understand this kind of thing addressed to me. The father of the lady you are speaking of has been my most intimate friend for thirty years." After all, the Colonel was a mean man when he could take pride in his youth, and defend himself on the score of his age, in one and the same proceeding. "I have nothing further to say," replied Stanbury. "You have said too much already, Mr. Stanbury." "I think not, Colonel Osborne. You have, I fear, done an incredible deal of mischief by going to Nuncombe Putney; and, after all that you have heard on the subject, you must have known that it would be mischievous. I cannot understand how you can | vouchsafed | How many times the word 'vouchsafed' appears in the text? | 0 |
very great,--so great that in its first flush she could not restrain herself from exhibiting it to Dorothy. "Well,--well,--what do you think, Dolly?" "About what, aunt? I don't know who the letter is from." "Nobody writes to me now so constant as your sister Priscilla. The letter is from Priscilla. Colonel Osborne has been at the Clock House, after all. I knew that he would be there. I knew it! I knew it!" Dorothy, when she heard this, was dumbfounded. She had rested her defence of her mother and sister on the impossibility of any such visit being admitted. According to her lights the coming of Colonel Osborne, after all that had been said, would be like the coming of Lucifer himself. The Colonel was, to her imagination, a horrible roaring lion. She had no idea that the erratic manoeuvres of such a beast might be milder and more innocent than the wooing of any turtle-dove. She would have asked whether the roaring lion had gone away again, and, if so, whether he had taken his prey with him, were it not that she was too much frightened at the moment to ask any question. That her mother and sister should have been wilfully concerned in such iniquity was quite incredible to her, but yet she did not know how to defend them. "But are you quite sure of it, Aunt Stanbury? May there not be another mistake?" "No mistake this time, I think, my dear. Any way, Priscilla says that he is there." Now in this there was a mistake. Priscilla had said nothing of the kind. "You don't mean that he is staying at the Clock House, Aunt Stanbury?" "I don't know where he is now. I'm not his keeper. And, I'm glad to say, I'm not the lady's keeper either. Ah, me! It's a bad business. You can't touch pitch and not be defiled, my dear. If your mother wanted the Clock House, I would sooner have taken it for her myself than that all this should have happened,--for the family's sake." But Miss Stanbury, when she was alone, and when she had read her niece's three letters again and again, began to understand something of Priscilla's honesty, and began also to perceive that there might have been a great difficulty respecting the Colonel, for which neither her niece nor her sister-in-law could fairly be held to be responsible. It was perhaps the plainest characteristic of all the Stanburys that they were never wilfully dishonest. Ignorant, prejudiced, and passionate they might be. In her anger Miss Stanbury, of Exeter, could be almost malicious; and her niece at Nuncombe Putney was very like her aunt. Each could say most cruel things, most unjust things, when actuated by a mistaken consciousness of perfect right on her own side. But neither of them could lie,--even by silence. Let an error be brought home to either of them,--so as to be acknowledged at home,--and the error would be assuredly confessed aloud. And, indeed, with differences in the shades, Hugh and Dorothy were of the same nature. They were possessed of sweeter tempers than their aunt and sister, but they were filled with the same eager readiness to believe themselves to be right,--and to own themselves to others to be wrong, when they had been constrained to make such confession to themselves. The chances of life, and something probably of inner nature, had made Dorothy mild and obedient; whereas, in regard to Hugh, the circumstances of his life and disposition had made him obstinate and self-reliant. But in all was to be found the same belief in self,--which amounted almost to conceit,--the same warmth of affection, and the same love of justice. When Miss Stanbury had again perused the correspondence, and had come to see, dimly, how things had gone at Nuncombe Putney,--when the conviction came upon her mind that Priscilla had entertained a horror as to the coming of this Colonel equal to that which she herself had felt,--when her imagination painted to her all that her niece had suffered, her heart was softened somewhat. She had declared to Dorothy that pitch, if touched, would certainly defile; and she had, at first, intended to send the same opinion, couched in very forcible words, to her correspondents at the Clock House. They should not continue to go astray for want of being told that they were going astray. It must be acknowledged, too, that there was a certain amount of ignoble wrath in the bosom of Miss Stanbury because her sister-in-law had taken the Clock House. She had never been told, and had not even condescended to ask Dorothy, whether the house was taken and paid for by her nephew on behalf of his mother, or whether it was paid for by Mr. Trevelyan on behalf of his wife. In the latter case, Mrs. Stanbury would, she thought, be little more than an upper servant, or keeper,--as she expressed it to herself. Such an arrangement appeared to her to be quite disgraceful in a Stanbury; but yet she believed that such must be the existing arrangement, as she could not bring herself to conceive that Hugh Stanbury could keep such an establishment over his mother's head out of money earned by writing for a penny newspaper. There would be a triumph of democracy in this which would vanquish her altogether. She had, therefore, been anxious enough to trample on Priscilla and upon all the affairs of the Clock House; but yet she had been unable to ignore the nobility of Priscilla's truth, and having acknowledged it to herself she found herself compelled to acknowledge it aloud. She sat down to think in silence, and it was not till she had fortified herself by her first draught of beer, and till she had finished her first portion of bread and cheese, that she spoke. "I have written to your sister herself, this time," she said. "I don't know that I ever wrote a line to her before in my life." "Poor Priscilla!" Dorothy did not mean to be severe on her aunt, either in regard to the letters which had not been written, or to the one letter which now had been written. But Dorothy pitied her sister, whom she felt to be in trouble. "Well; I don't know about her being so poor. Priscilla, I'll be bound, thinks as well of herself as any of us do." "She'd cut her fingers off before she'd mean to do wrong," said Dorothy. "But what does that come to? What's the good of that? It isn't meaning to do right that will save us. For aught I know, the Radicals may mean to do right. Mr. Beales means to do right--perhaps." "But, aunt,--if everybody did the best they could?" "Tush, my dear! you are getting beyond your depth. There are such things still, thank God! as spiritual pastors and masters. Entrust yourself to them. Do what they think right." Now if aught were known in Exeter of Miss Stanbury, this was known,--that if any clergyman volunteered to give to her, unasked and uninvited, counsel, either ghostly or bodily, that clergyman would be sent from her presence with a wigging which he would not soon forget. The thing had been tried more than once, and the wigging had been complete. There was no more attentive listener in church than Miss Stanbury; and she would, now and again, appeal to a clergyman on some knotty point. But for the ordinary authority of spiritual pastors and masters she shewed more of abstract reverence than of practical obedience. "I'm sure Priscilla does the best she can," said Dorothy, going back to the old subject. "Ah,--well,--yes. What I want to say about Priscilla is this. It is a thousand pities she is so obstinate, so pig-headed, so certain that she can manage everything for herself better than anybody else can for her." Miss Stanbury was striving to say something good of her niece, but found the task to be difficult and distasteful to her. "She has managed for mamma ever so many years; and since she took it we have hardly ever been in debt," said Dorothy. "She'll do all that, I don't doubt. I don't suppose she cares much for ribbons and false hair for herself." "Who? Priscilla! The idea of Priscilla with false hair!" "I dare say not;--I dare say not. I do not think she'd spend her mother's money on things of that kind." "Aunt Stanbury, you don't know her." "Ah; very well. Perhaps I don't. But, come, my dear, you are very hard upon me, and very anxious to take your sister's part. And what is it all about? I've just written to her as civil a letter as one woman ever wrote to another. And if I had chosen, I could have,--could have,--h--m--m." Miss Stanbury, as she hesitated for words in which to complete her sentence, revelled in the strength of the vituperation which she could have poured upon her niece's head, had she chosen to write her last letter about Colonel Osborne in her severe strain. "If you have written kindly to her, I am so much obliged to you," said Dorothy. "The truth is, Priscilla has meant to be right. Meaning won't go for much when the account is taken, unless the meaning comes from a proper source. But the poor girl has done as well as she has known how. I believe it is Hugh's fault more than anybody else's." This accusation was not pleasant to Dorothy, but she was too intent just now on Priscilla's case to defend her brother. "That man never ought to have been there; and that woman never ought to have been there. There cannot be a doubt about that. If Priscilla were sitting there opposite to me, she would own as much. I am sure she would." Miss Stanbury was quite right if she meant to assert that Priscilla had owned as much to herself. "And because I think so, I am willing to forgive her part in the matter. To me, personally, she has always been rude,--most uncourteous,--and,--and,--and unlike a younger woman to an older one, and an aunt, and all that. I suppose it is because she hates me." "Oh, no, Aunt Stanbury!" "My dear, I suppose it is. Why else should she treat me in such a way? But I do believe of her that she would rather eat an honest, dry crust, than dishonest cake and ale." "She would rather starve than pick up a crumb that was dishonest," said Dorothy, fairly bursting out into tears. "I believe it. I do believe it. There; what more can I say? Clock House, indeed! What matter what house you live in, so that you can pay the rent of it honestly?" "But the rent is paid--honestly," said Dorothy, amidst her sobs. "It's paid, I don't doubt. I dare say the woman's husband and your brother see to that among them. Oh, that my boy, Hugh, as he used to be, should have brought us all to this! But there's no knowing what they won't do among them. Reform, indeed! Murder, sacrilege, adultery, treason, atheism;--that's what Reform means; besides every kind of nastiness under the sun." In which latter category Miss Stanbury intended especially to include bad printer's ink, and paper made of straw. The reader may as well see the letter which was as civil a letter as ever one woman wrote to another, so that the collection of the Stanbury correspondence may be made perfect. The Close, August 6, 186--. MY DEAR NIECE, Your letter has not astonished me nearly as much as you expected it would. I am an older woman than you, and, though you will not believe it, I have seen more of the world. I knew that the gentleman would come after the lady. Such gentlemen always do go after their ladies. As for yourself, I can see all that you have done, and pretty nearly hear all that you have said, as plain as a pike-staff. I do you the credit of believing that the plan is none of your making. I know who made the plan, and a very bad plan it is. As to my former letters and the other man, I understand all about it. You were very angry that I should accuse you of having this man at the house; and you were right to be angry. I respect you for having been angry. But what does all that say as to his coming,--now that he has come? If you will consent to take an old woman's advice, get rid of the whole boiling of them. I say it in firm love and friendship, for I am,-- Your affectionate aunt, JEMIMA STANBURY. The special vaunted courtesy of this letter consisted, no doubt, in the expression of respect which it contained, and in that declaration of affection with which it terminated. The epithet was one which Miss Stanbury would by no means use promiscuously in writing to her nearest relatives. She had not intended to use it when she commenced her letter to Priscilla. But the respect of which she had spoken had glowed, and had warmed itself into something of temporary love; and feeling at the moment that she was an affectionate aunt, Miss Stanbury had so put herself down in her letter. Having done such a deed she felt that Dorothy, though Dorothy knew nothing about it, ought in her gratitude to listen patiently to anything that she might now choose to say against Priscilla. But Dorothy was in truth very miserable, and in her misery wrote a long letter that afternoon to her mother,--which, however, it will not be necessary to place entire among the Stanbury records,--begging that she might be informed as to the true circumstances of the case. She did not say a word of censure in regard either to her mother or sister; but she expressed an opinion in the mildest words which she could use, that if anything had happened which had compromised their names since their residence at the Clock House, she, Dorothy, had better go home and join them. The meaning of which was that it would not become her to remain in the house in the Close, if the house in the Close would be disgraced by her presence. Poor Dorothy had taught herself to think that the iniquity of roaring lions spread itself very widely. In the afternoon she made some such proposition to her aunt in ambiguous terms. "Go home!" said Miss Stanbury. "Now?" "If you think it best, Aunt Stanbury." "And put yourself in the middle of all this iniquity and abomination! I don't suppose you want to know the woman?" "No, indeed!" "Or the man?" "Oh, Aunt Stanbury!" "It's my belief that no decent gentleman in Exeter would look at you again if you were to go and live among them at Nuncombe Putney while all this is going on. No, no. Let one of you be saved out of it, at least." Aunt Stanbury had more than once made use of expressions which brought the faintest touch of gentle pink up to her niece's cheeks. We must do Dorothy the justice of saying that she had never dreamed of being looked at by any gentleman, whether decent or indecent. Her life at Nuncombe Putney had been of such a nature, that though she knew that other girls were looked at, and even made love to, and that they got married and had children, no dim vision of such a career for herself had ever presented itself to her eyes. She had known very well that her mother and sister and herself were people apart,--ladies, and yet so extremely poor, that they could only maintain their rank by the most rigid seclusion. To live, and work unseen, was what the world had ordained for her. Then her call to Exeter had come upon her, and she had conceived that she was henceforth to be the humble companion of a very imperious old aunt. Her aunt, indeed, was imperious, but did not seem to require humility in her companion. All the good things that were eaten and drunk were divided between them with the strictest impartiality. Dorothy's cushion and hassock in the church and in the cathedral were the same as her aunt's. Her bed-room was made very comfortable for her. Her aunt never gave her any orders before company, and always spoke of her before the servants as one whom they were to obey and respect. Gradually Dorothy came to understand the meaning of this;--but her aunt would sometimes say things about young men which she did not quite understand. Could it be that her aunt supposed that any young man would come and wish to marry her,--her, Dorothy Stanbury? She herself had not quite so strong an aversion to men in general as that which Priscilla felt, but she had not as yet found that any of those whom she had seen at Exeter were peculiarly agreeable to her. Before she went to bed that night her aunt said a word to her which startled her more than she had ever been startled before. On that evening Miss Stanbury had a few friends to drink tea with her. There were Mr. and Mrs. Crumbie, and Mrs. MacHugh of course, and the Cheritons from Alphington, and the Miss Apjohns from Helion Villa, and old Mr. Powel all the way from Haldon, and two of the Wrights from their house in the Northernhay, and Mr. Gibson;--but the Miss Frenches from Heavitree were not there. "Why don't you have the Miss Frenches, aunt?" Dorothy had asked. "Bother the Miss Frenches! I'm not bound to have them every time. There's Camilla has been and got herself a band-box on the back of her head a great deal bigger than the place inside where her brains ought to be." But the band-box at the back of Camilla French's head was not the sole cause of the omission of the two sisters from the list of Miss Stanbury's visitors on this occasion. The party went off very much as usual. There were two whist tables, for Miss Stanbury could not bear to cut out. At other houses than her own, when there was cutting out, it was quite understood that Miss Stanbury was to be allowed to keep her place. "I'll go away, and sit out there by myself, if you like," she would say. But she was never thus banished; and at her own house she usually contrived that there should be no system of banishment. She would play dummy whist, preferring it to the four-handed game; and, when hard driven, and with a meet opponent, would not even despise double-dummy. It was told of her and of Mrs. MacHugh that they had played double-dummy for a whole evening together; and they who were given to calumny had declared that the candles on that evening had been lighted very early. On the present occasion a great many sixpenny points were scored, and much tea and cake were consumed. Mr. Gibson never played whist,--nor did Dorothy. That young John Wright and Mary Cheriton should do nothing but talk to each other was a thing of course, as they were to be married in a month or two. Then there was Ida Cheriton, who could not very well be left at home; and Mr. Gibson made himself pleasant to Dorothy and Ida Cheriton, instead of making himself pleasant to the two Miss Frenches. Gentlemen in provincial towns quite understand that, from the nature of social circumstances in the provinces, they should always be ready to be pleasant at least to a pair at a time. At a few minutes before twelve they were all gone, and then came the shock. "Dolly, my dear, what do you think of Mr. Gibson?" "Think of him, Aunt Stanbury?" "Yes; think of him;--think of him. I suppose you know how to think?" "He seems to me always to preach very drawling sermons." "Oh, bother his sermons! I don't care anything about his sermons now. He is a very good clergyman, and the Dean thinks very much about him." "I am glad of that, Aunt Stanbury." Then came the shock. "Don't you think it would be a very good thing if you were to become Mrs. Gibson?" It may be presumed that Miss Stanbury had assured herself that she could not make progress with Dorothy by "beating about the bush." There was an inaptitude in her niece to comprehend the advantages of the situations, which made some direct explanation absolutely necessary. Dorothy stood half-smiling, half-crying, when she heard the proposition, her cheeks suffused with that pink colour, and with both her hands extended with surprise. "I've been thinking about it ever since you've been here," said Miss Stanbury. "I think he likes Miss French," said Dorothy, in a whisper. "Which of them? I don't believe he likes them at all. Maybe, if they go on long enough, they may be able to toss up for him. But I don't think it of him. Of course they're after him, but he'll be too wise for them. And he's more of a fool than I take him to be if he don't prefer you to them." Dorothy remained quite silent. To such an address as this it was impossible that she should reply a word. It was incredible to her that any man should prefer herself to either of the young women in question; but she was too much confounded for the expression even of her humility. "At any rate you're wholesome, and pleasant and modest," said Miss Stanbury. Dorothy did not quite like being told that she was wholesome; but, nevertheless, she was thankful to her aunt. "I'll tell you what it is," continued Miss Stanbury; "I hate all mysteries, especially with those I love. I've saved two thousand pounds, which I've put you down for in my will. Now, if you and he can make it up together, I'll give you the money at once. There's no knowing how often an old woman may alter her will; but when you've got a thing, you've got it. Mr. Gibson would know the meaning of a bird in the hand as well as anybody. Now those girls at Heavitree will never have above a few hundreds each, and not that while their mother lives." Dorothy made one little attempt at squeezing her aunt's hand, wishing to thank her aunt for this affectionate generosity; but she had hardly accomplished the squeeze, when she desisted, feeling strangely averse to any acknowledgment of such a boon as that which had been offered to her. "And now, good night, my dear. If I did not think you a very sensible young woman, I should not trust you by saying all this." Then they parted, and Dorothy soon found herself alone in her bedroom. To have a husband of her own, a perfect gentleman too, and a clergyman;--and to go to him with a fortune! She believed that two thousand pounds represented nearly a hundred a year. It was a large fortune in those parts,--according to her understanding of ladies' fortunes. And that she, the humblest of the humble, should be selected for so honourable a position! She had never quite known, quite understood as yet, whether she had made good her footing in her aunt's house in a manner pleasant to her aunt. More than once or twice she had spoken even of going back to her mother, and things had been said which had almost made her think that her aunt had been angry with her. But now, after a month or two of joint residence, her aunt was offering to her--two thousand pounds and a husband! But was it within her aunt's power to offer to her the husband? Mr. Gibson had always been very civil to her. She had spoken more to Mr. Gibson than to any other man in Exeter. But it had never occurred to her for a moment that Mr. Gibson had any special liking for her. Was it probable that he would ever entertain any feeling of that kind for her? It certainly had occurred to her before now that Mr. Gibson was sometimes bored by the Miss Frenches;--but then gentlemen do get bored by ladies. And at last she asked herself another question,--had she any special liking for Mr. Gibson? As far as she understood such matters everything was blank there. Thinking of that other question, she went to sleep. CHAPTER XXIII. COLONEL OSBORNE AND MR. BOZZLE RETURN TO LONDON. Hugh Stanbury went down on the Saturday, by the early express to Exeter, on his road to Lessboro'. He took his ticket through to Lessboro', not purposing to stay at Exeter; but, from the exigencies of the various trains, it was necessary that he should remain for half an hour at the Exeter Station. This took place on the Saturday, and Colonel Osborne's visit to the Clock House had been made on the Friday. Colonel Osborne had returned to Lessboro', had slept again at Mrs. Clegg's house, and returned to London on the Saturday. It so happened that he also was obliged to spend half an hour at the Exeter Station, and that his half-hour, and Hugh Stanbury's half-hour, were one and the same. They met, therefore, as a matter of course, upon the platform. Stanbury was the first to see the other, and he found that he must determine on the spur of the moment what he would say, and what he would do. He had received no direct commission from Trevelyan as to his meeting with Colonel Osborne. Trevelyan had declared that, as to the matter of quarrelling, he meant to retain the privilege of doing that for himself; but Stanbury had quite understood that this was only the vague expression of an angry man. The Colonel had taken a glass of sherry, and had lighted a cigar, and was quite comfortable,--having thrown aside, for a time, that consciousness of the futility of his journey which had perplexed him,--when Stanbury accosted him. "What! Mr. Stanbury,--how do you do? Fine day, isn't it? Are you going up or down?" "I'm going to see my own people at Nuncombe Putney, a village beyond Lessboro'," said Hugh. "Ah;--indeed." Colonel Osborne of course perceived at once that as this man was going to the house at which he had just been visiting, it would be better that he should himself explain what he had done. If he were to allow this mention of Nuncombe Putney to pass without saying that he himself had been there, he would be convicted of at least some purpose of secrecy in what he had been doing. "Very strange," said he; "I was at Nuncombe Putney myself yesterday." "I know you were," said Stanbury. "And how did you know it?" There had been a tone of anger in Stanbury's voice which Colonel Osborne had at once appreciated, and which made him assume a similar tone. As they spoke there was a man standing in a corner close by the bookstall, with his eye upon them, and that man was Bozzle, the ex-policeman,--who was doing his duty with sedulous activity by seeing "the Colonel" back to London. Now Bozzle did not know Hugh Stanbury, and was angry with himself that he should be so ignorant. It is the pride of a detective ex-policeman to know everybody that comes in his way. "Well, I had been so informed. My friend Trevelyan knew that you were there,--or that you were going there." "I don't care who knew that I was going there," said the Colonel. "I won't pretend to understand how that may be, Colonel Osborne; but I think you must be aware, after what took place in Curzon Street, that it would have been better that you should not have attempted to see Mrs. Trevelyan. Whether you have seen her I do not know." "What business is it of yours, Mr. Stanbury, whether I have seen that lady or not?" "Unhappily for me, her husband has made it my business." "Very unhappily for you, I should say." "And the lady is staying at my mother's house." "I presume the lady is not a prisoner in your mother's house, and that your mother's hospitality is not so restricted but that her guest may see an old friend under her roof." This Colonel Osborne said with an assumed look of almost righteous indignation, which was not at all lost upon Bozzle. They had returned back towards the bookstall, and Bozzle, with his eyes fixed on a copy of the "D. R." which he had just bought, was straining his ears to the utmost to catch what was being said. "You best know whether you have seen her or not." "I have seen her." "Then I shall take leave to tell you, Colonel Osborne, that you have acted in a most unfriendly way, and have done that which must tend to keep an affectionate husband apart from his wife." "Sir, I don't at all understand this kind of thing addressed to me. The father of the lady you are speaking of has been my most intimate friend for thirty years." After all, the Colonel was a mean man when he could take pride in his youth, and defend himself on the score of his age, in one and the same proceeding. "I have nothing further to say," replied Stanbury. "You have said too much already, Mr. Stanbury." "I think not, Colonel Osborne. You have, I fear, done an incredible deal of mischief by going to Nuncombe Putney; and, after all that you have heard on the subject, you must have known that it would be mischievous. 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